Mejalian Knights: Extrordinary Times
by The 483
Summary: 600 years is a long time for a people. It causes all kinds of change, people become forgotten, truth blurred, and fantasy becomes reality. Heros may die in body, but their legends continue, even if misremebered. Where are our heros now?
1. Assignment

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

A while back, say, 6 months or so, I got spiritually constipated, so I pulled out my laptop, some British Television, and dropped a steaming load of words directly onto the chest of the internet. Well, that's how it started, anyway, but now I think this might be the one story I might actually enjoy having in my corral.

**Warning, this starts really slow, and has pretty much nothing to do with anything for the first 8 pages, then does for a while, the back off for a few more pages. Not sure where it's eventually land, butt it's will probably focus on the character introduced in thee first two words of the story.**

**(ReReading, so I thought I'd Once Over it.)**

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#1: Assignment**

Casey Chambers awoke with a small start, her eyes snapping open, but without otherwise moving. The rumpled sheet was a vast hilly landscape in the moonlight to her roving eyes, serene in the soft light, and the airy tune wafting gently from the ceiling speakers. She tried to figure out what woke her. Maybe it was the same thing that had been waking her at all hours of the night for the last 2 months. But she was finally done, and tomorrow afternoon… Her train of thought tapered off as her attention landed on a small growling noise she thought she might be imagining. It continued intermittently, and, after a minute, rose quickly into a little snarl, and a dark shape leapt from the shadows, landing on her exposed fingers with a stabbing pain.

"Ow!" She yelped, sitting up and snatching her hand away from her small, furry assailant. "Damn it Sprinkles, that hurt." She scolded, sticking the sore finger in her mouth, as the orange and white ball of fur and retractable claws discovered that it had the need to catch his tail. She watched him absently for a moment, nursing her finger, her own woes temporarily forgotten as the kitten tried to commit tail-i-cide. After another moment of valiant effort on the kitten's behalf, she flipped back the sheet, and got up. The soft fiber carpet felt good under her bare feet as she walked to the window, and gazed out at the rolling plains of grass undulating gently in the bright moonlight.

Casey stood at just under 5'9 and weighed 124 pounds as she stood now, barefoot, and wearing only matching Black bra and panties. The moonlight shone in her slightly too large brown eyes, and made her reddish-brown hair shine as it rested on her shoulders. Her features rounded out with a slightly upturned nose, a strong, but not dominating jaw, and modest B cupped bust tapering to a slim waist. She knew she was, as her male acquaintances were never shy about pointing out, strikingly beautiful.

But, not far beneath the outer brilliance, lay a veritable lake of inner brilliance. At only 22, she was turning in her final paper of her scholarly career. She would be considered a genius, except that she was far too modest to label herself as such. And, as she had once pointed out to a date who would be extremely disappointed by the news, lacked the disregard for the sexual mores of her culture that always marked a genius.

She stared at the grass, her right forearm across her navel, the left hanging down her side, absentmindedly scratching her leg. She yawned, bringing up her hand to stifle it, and when finished, reached out and pressed a button next to the window. The grass darkened faded to black. Then, it snapped into a sprawling jungle of skyscrapers and flashing lights. She sighed and looked weary, and in the lights of the city, small wrinkles seemed to appear under her eyes.

She lived in room number 4 on the 83rd floor of the "Executive Arms Apartment Center" in habitat 21 on the southern hemisphere of Mejale. She didn't rent, partly because she liked the security of owning a plot, and secondly, because she was a good electron pusher. She owned the entire 83rd floor, also the top, and had the entire plot of the twelve rooms connected. The elevator in the lobby didn't even go to the floor without her own special key or combination. She had developed the window she had in her bedroom, and it was quite popular, and made her quite well to do. It was no surprise that it would sell well on Mejale, with it's dependence on aesthetics, but it also sold well on Tarak. She guessed it must help their morale to be able to look out a window and see something other than bleak, red desert.

She sighed, and touched the window screen, a wheel with the six main colors appearing. She pressed the blue, and it irised out into a box with several icons appeared. There was a little tree, a tuft of grass, a mountain, and a little snowflake. She clicked it, and turned away, heading through the adjoining door and into the bathroom. The bathroom was a spectacular display, and often dazzled the few visitors she had. All marbled porcelain and rich, velvety carpeting, and so large it took up the space of 2 rooms. The tub was huge, partially sunk into the floor, so that the rim was knee high, with graduated lounging shelves going down, with the maximum depth set so the water would sit just below her breasts. It combined the best parts of a tub, Jacuzzi, and pool, with build in bubble bath dispensers. It was the perfect thing to help unwind after a stressful day. She did her business, and went through another door into the main living room. It contained everything a modern day girl could ask for: couch, recliners, lounging area, enormous Television, and the deluxe cat tree entertainment and activity center, the did everything but prevent the occasional midnight mauling.

Through one more door and she arrived in the kitchen. Opening a cabinet, she entered her code in the face of a small locking door. It swung open, reveling an arangement of small, colorful bottles. Pulling out a blue one, she closed the door, and twisted off the neck. It was a perfectly measured dose of _Boucher Merlot,_ the perfect nightcap. She threw it back, tossed the bottle parts don the rubbish chute, and treked back to the bedroom, the calm sense of easy pulling her back to sleep. She crawled back into bed, laying on her side, and as she drifted back to sleep the kitten purred and curled up next to her stomach as water gurgled softly through a stream in a frozen landscape outside her window.

The sun rose,sharp reflection dancing on the field of snow, shooting the sky with reds and oranges. A pack of great grey and white wolves paused to drink, alternately raising their heads and loosing mournful cries that reverberated through the room.

"…urrrr-right, I'm up…I'mup." Casey mumbled, arm sticking awkwardly out the rumpled bundle of sheets. The kitten sat on the pillow, paws resting on her forehead and it lookred down at her nose. At her voice the wolves looked surprised, and dashed off into the snow. "'scuse me Sprink, but your standing on my face, and I need to get up." The kitten purred and started kneading, and that prompted a quick move on her part. She got out of the bed, stretching with her arms up as she walked to the bathroom. 8 minutes later she walked out into the living area, refreshed and dressed.

Her hair was tied up and held in place with a series of ivory colored ornate sticks, and a pair of black rimmed reading glasses resting above her brow. She had a white jacket like top, long sleeved, cut upwards in an inverted V, but folded over and buttoned in the front, and a knee length black skirt, leggings, and flat black dress shoes. She walked quickly to the front door, grabbed her Personal Electronic Data Device, or PEDD from the wall socket, and tucked it into a pocket on the small of her back, and walked out and into the elevator.

The Shuttle arrived in front of a spiffy looking series of buildings spread across neat sprawling lawn. Numbers were glued on the tops of the buildings, and Casey walked on the path cutting through the heart of the structures, and into the building in the very center of the area.

"Damn, Casey, running late?" A green haired woman in her thirties said as she entered the door to the café. Casey lifted her watch and examined it.

"I'm only 14 seconds after. My cat decided that he wanted to use my head to exercise on, and held me up for a while." She walked up and took the coffee that was waiting, swiping her Credit code through the scanner, and then sat next to the older woman. "What's it like in there today, Stacy?"

"Buncha bloated stuffed shirts that would know a good show if it was sitting on their faces."

"…so, the usual, then?"

"yep, but they have no idea the bomb that your gonna drop on 'em in there. They'll either love you, or lynch you so no pressure."

"Alright, either way, you game for drinks after at the house?"

"Sure." Stacy finished her coffee with a big gulp. "Alright, don't want to be late for your own execution, let's go."

(***)

Casey slid her glasses down over her eyes, and data scrolled over the lenses. It identified the half dozen people arrayed at the table in front of her, and the controls for the projector board behind her. She eyed them quizzically over the top of her half moon glasses, touching her stylus to her lips. The people were her friend Stacy, who was the head of the college, and 4 other very prestigious schools on the planet. 2 were male, and the final member of the group was merely labeled as "Col. Verning" and was stoop shouldered and gray haired. This was big, she thought, if the military was involved. The thing about this presentation was it wasn't a doctoral thesis; she had already earned her doctorate. This was more along the line of a job interview. She cleared her throat, and the final lights went out.

"Prestigious ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for coming to this presentation. My name is Casey Chambers, and I have over the past years been colleting and correlating data concerning the great heroes of the Harvest War." She cleared her throat again, and as if on cue the screen glowed to life. "I have titled this presentation, Mejalian Knights: The Unification of the Planets of The Epsilon Vega System."

"600 years ago, the neighboring planet of Tarak launched a refurbished colony-class ship refitted into a battleship. This ship was named the _Ikazuchi_." The screen displayed a grainy image of a blocky ship. "From old reports, partial logs, and a single, partially burned book entitled "Man vs. Destiny: The Amazing Tale of How Bart Garsus Saved the Galaxy" which seems to be a mostly fictitious autobiography penned by the pilot/navigator of the pirate ship _Nirvana_, that a male stowaway was arrested while the ship was on a parade demonstration. This stowaway was named Hibiki Tokai. On the way back to the surface and the execution, the ship was attacked by a group of female pirates led by Magno Vivan and a male spy codenamed B.C. During the battle, the Male Prime Minister of the males broke the ship apart, and fired upon the boarded section of the ship. During this, something that no one has record of, the ship and all aboard vanished. The pirates we not seen or heard from in over six months, and were presumed dead until a pair of message torpedoes arrived, claiming a robotic race bent on slaughter and consummation of the human race. In just under another 5 months, the pirates arrived in orbit around Mejale, and were promptly arrested. And, promptly, they were freed by a second group of pirates, and reunited with their ship. Shortly there after they made contact with the leaders of both planets, and the robots arrived. The fleets of several other systems and the two planets defenders rallied and managed to defeat the enemies. The pirates, in honor of their service, were to be the first experiment of uniting the men and women. They recruited people of both sexes, and departed on a mission that has no remaining records, but it is speculated that they went to find the origin of the robots. They were never seen or heard from again, and neither was any trace of the robots in any explored arm of the galaxy. My complete findings have been given to you in the packets of info you were all given. Thank you.

(***)

Stacy Wattsman looked at herself in the full length mirror, comparing herself to her best friend with a little bit of envy. She was 34, tall, pretty, and cynical well beyond her years. She was extremely bright and driven, which was one of the reasons she was the head of a very prestigious school, and was respected, if not very popular. It was also one of the reasons why she was able to connect with Casey. When Casey had first applied at the college 4 years ago, she had seen the something in the girl that she liked. She hadn't liked the interviewers, and had somehow hunted her down while she was at lunch off campus. Stacy had been slightly impressed and let her join her, and by the end of lunch Casey was enrolling, and Stacy had a good friend.

She turned from the mirror as Casey walked in with a basket on hooks, filled with assorted bottles of wine and a trio of glasses.

"Wonder what's taking Jane so long, she said 5 and its now…" She checked the clock on the wall, "23 seconds after 5." Stacy turned from her reflection.

"How inconsiderate of her. Turn on the walls and lets start relaxing." Stacy said rubbing her stomach, the taking the basket and latching it to the side of the lounging tub. Casey moved around to the other side of the tub and fiddled with some dials. The lights dimmed and went out as the stars blinked into life and the moon rose against the left wall over above a brushy hill covered in snow. The whole room was transported into a brightly moon lit clearing in the middle of a rolling forest. Stacy cocked an eyebrow quizzically at Casey. "What's with the all the snow?" She asked.

"You ever had drinks in a hot tub on a night with a full moon in the snow? It's magical." She replied, and the room temperature started to drop as they heard their third member announce her presence. Casey snuggled deeper into her downy robe and strode out to greet Jane. Stacy shook her head and shucked her own robe, leaving her in a green bikini almost matching her hair, and hung it on a hook. As she climbed into the tub, the agitation jets shuddered to life. A few seconds later, Casey and Jane walked in, Casey shucking her robe and hanging it, revealing a black bikini, and climbed in. Jane placed another bottle of wine into the basket, and then shed her street outfit, leaving her in a white bikini with blonde hair. They all giggled, talked, and got sloshed for a good portion of the night, blowing of the steam of a stressful week. On the walls, the moonlit forest came to life as they fell asleep. Rabbits hopped through the snow, birds roosted in the bare trees, and a trio of wolves rolled around playing with each other.

It was about two in the morning, a herd of elk were marching through a well plodded game trail. The largest male stopped and looked toward the passed out women, its enormous branching antlers shedding velvet. If anyone had been capable of thought, they would have admired the majestic beauty of the animal. The elk let out a low, mournful cry, so deep that the air reverberated. Casey stirred slightly, and readjusted, too blitzed and comfortable in the warm water to wake at the message received tone the elk was conveying. The message flashed up in the sky on the wall behind the tub, the stars swirling around to form the words.

It was one line and a name. _Will be at residence at 0800. – Verning._

_(***)_

An owl hooted loudly from a tree, trying to illicit a response from the sleeping girls. It tried 3 more times unsuccessfully, and then the whole forest joined in, and continued until Casey finally came around enough to make noise in a directed fashion.

"urrrgh-ut?" She groaned, eyes opening, then closing quickly in the morning light. A male voice answered from nowhere.

"Management ma'am, your visitor has arrived." The tight voice that said paper shuffler replied.

"urglerraut izzitar?"

"I don't know, ma'am, she didn't leave a name, she just said you were expecting her."

"Arrite, shenderoop." There was a small click that sent all the animals scurrying. Casey rolled her head, and slowly pulled herself out of the tub, hating every move she made until she had managed chew and swallow the small orange capsule that was an anti hangover drug. As it took hold (hunted down the poison and forced it out of her system, and yes, that's exactly what it means) she tried to remember what the message could have been. She finished refreshing, and grabbed her robe, and squirmed into it as deeply as she could, going from hung-over to professional in a single move. She strode to the only hallway leading door and moved to meet her guest at the elevator door.

The doors parted with a small bing, and a small, grey, stoop shouldered woman walked out. Casey eyes widened slightly in surprise, "Colonel Verning, this is a surprise." The old woman grinned, her face wrinkling pleasantly.

"Really?" she asked in faux shock, "after that presentation yesterday I would have thought you'd be surprised not to see me. Is there a place we could move that isn't so… public?"

"I own this hole floor. No one can get in without me allowing them, or if they have a key, and the only two that have those are sleeping in my lounging tub.

"Ok then, I'll make this brief. After myself, and a staff of the formost experts on the subject of the pirate ship _Nirvana_, and we have determined that you have managed, by yourself, without any apparent aid, to have amassed more relevant data then the entire Navys of both planets. Long story short, we would like you to join our intelligence unit, in hopes to find out what happened to the ship." Casey stared at the small woman standing in front of her for a minute before responding.

"But, Ma'am, all my data was given to you in my report, I don't know what more help I can be." To her surprise, the Colonel chuckled.

"Please don't insult me, dear, because we both know that someone as smart as you would never play all her cards at once like that. After almost 32 years of reading reports and pure bull crap, I can tell when there's more that isn't being told. Here's a dossier for the operation, containing ALL of our work on the subject, as well as an overview of project Resurrection. Look it over, and then use my calling code to let me know your answer." Casey cocked an eyebrow quizzically as the Colonel returned to the elevator.

"Does a Colonel usually go on recruitment ops, ma'am?" Casey asked, unable to see the large smile that meant she knew she had her. She kept her back turned.

"Extraordinary times, child." The Colonel turned, smiling even broader. "We've found her, Casey, We found the Nirvana!"

**El finito, Capitulo uno. And really, I hope the one or two, or even none, people who will eventually get around to looking at this enjoy it, because I actually like this one, and I hope it show. It should be an interesting next chapter, so stay tuned. Been reading a lot of Michael Chriton and halo, and as always, I am influenced by what I see, so expect some suspense, and some good old space age combat.**


	2. Boarding the Imperial

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

Okey dokey, I'mma gonna work on part 2 now, so, bear with me. Also, I wan to thank the user Gungrave Company for going over the first part, it really means a lot. Seriously! And, I am a whore, so I want to get some reviews going one, let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#2: Boarding the **_**Imperial**_

**(-)**

**Resurrection log, Entry 1, day 1.**

_It's been a hurricane week. As I have joined the project, it was requested I keep a personal log to record the goings on. This is going to be a back log, as I intend to go over the week leading up to now, as I will be boarding the "Imperial" in 3 hours._

_(-)_

Colonel Verning walked into her office about 45 after leaving the hotel where the prodigal child lived. She was still partially amazed that a kid with no real resources had managed to get a much more complete picture of the _Nirvana_ in two years than her entire staff had in 15. Judging from the look on the girls face, she should have a call waiting for her. She sat in her chair, and powered the screen to her computer, and was about to open up her message window when a vid-link came up. She smiled and opened it, smiling as the pretty face grew of Casey grew on the screen.

"It's about time you called, what took you so long?" She said without malice. Casey responded simply.

"Sorry, Ma'am, I had to wake and usher out my friends. I would like to join your project."

"Good, I felt you would. Get your stuff together and affairs in order, my courier will pick you up in 2 days at 1400 and escort you to temporary quarters and a full briefing.

(-)

_I finished the call with the Colonel, and then immediately began to survey my belongings. Over the next day, I managed to place all the perishable objects I own with friends, or made arrangements with the management for everything but Sprinkles. Later that second day, I recalled the Colonel, and made some inquires/demands about the cat. She said I would be a civilian contractor of sorts, and in my own separate quarters and a pet would be allowed. I followed up with a farewell lunch with Stacy and Jane, which I would rather not put into writing, for personal reasons. Oh well, just remembered I still have to get the utilities shut off, and figure out how to get Sprinkles into his crate. I will try to update this again before I go to sleep tonight._

**Resurrection log, Entry 2, Day 1.**

_I have learned 2 things today. 1) it is hard to type with a mangled hand, and 2) that forcing a kitten into a space it doesn't want to go, will result in a mangled hand. He's gone under the bed, and will not come out. They gave me a sidearm. I didn't know what to do with the cat, so I bandaged my hand and shoved some food and water under, and he tried to get me again. It's silver and black, and I don't know why, but it's very pretty. Other then the mauling, the transfer over to the base was smooth. They Colonel said I would have a team of 2 staff members that she is assigning under me, as well as a spot on the payroll. I've already taken it apart and examined the insides. I've never had staff before; I get to meet them tomorrow. I cleaned everything and put it back together; it smells odd, but good. Anyway, I have to be up in 5 hours, so I'm logging off tonight. I think I'll sleep with it under my pillow._

**Resurrection log, Entry 3, day 2.**

_Outrage! I am a, and I quote, "Civilian Expert temporally attached to a special forces task group outside the normal chain of command." Now, I would take that to mean that I would have SOME say in who I would be working with. They put a MAN in the team, which is not really surprising, but the sod is a solider! They fed me some BS line about privateers and frontier planet conditions and such, but I don't have to like it._

_(-)_

Casey met the tram outside her temporary quarters, a converted office suite in a prefab building drug outside of the main barracks. Her cat was still refusing to relocated from its shelter beneath the bed, but she left a litter tray out, just in case. The little bus like vehicle shuddered to a stop in front her as the second hand of her watch ticked over onto 0800 hours. A man in fatigues patterned with patches of pixilated shaded of gray stepped out as the shuttered door opened. She appraised him in a single look. Tall, an inch or two more so than herself, soft looking black hair around 5 inches long and tufted out in a few places, strong chin with a straight lipped mouth, straight, slightly too large nose, and eyes of such a dazzling shade green she might have had to check her self if she had not noticed him appraising her. He was handsome, in a rugged sort of way. He had a, slender wasn't the right word, body frame, but she couldn't quite place the right word. He reached out his hand, and spoke in a deep voice with a hint of smoke. The tight flowing motion drew the word to her mind; he was build elegantly, like her new little pistol, perfectly engineered for its purpose.

"Morning, ma'am, my name is Corporal Hunt, and I am here to bring you to the lab building." She nodded and shook his hand, noting it to be soft but firm.

"Good morning," she replied, adding some formality to the neutral tone he had used, "I am Doctor Casey Chambers, thank you." He continued to stand at attention, but broke into a smile so disarming that she blushed almost too slightly to notice. She really hoped he didn't, so she added, "shall we?"

"Yes, Dr. Chambers." He moved aside, holding out his arm and ushering her inside of the shuttle. She sat in the first of the bench like seats and for the first time actually examined what she had on. A tight pair of black slacks topped with a tight long sleeved top and a knee length white lab coat, and comfortable black boots. She slid her glasses down over her eyes, and then looked at Cpl. Hunt as he climbed into the drivers chair, and looked over the files that sprang up on the inside surface. After just a minute, the shuttle again stopped, and this time, a tiny black haired got in. She made no introduction, but the glasses told Casey her name was Eva Fleming, and she was a 26 year old Engineer. She was built like a small porcelain doll, barely passing 5 feet, and couldn't have weighed more than about 90 pounds. Looking at her, she had large, inquisitive up and outward slanted dark blue, almost black eyes and a small flat nose with a smattering of small freckles across the bridge. Her hair was twisted into an elegant knot with bangs left hanging and her ears beneath the hair. Her chin tapered to a rounded point, with a perfectly centered mouth, with full, but narrow lips with just a hint of reddish hue. She was wearing the same as Casey, with the exception of her shirt was white and short sleeved. She grabbed the seat across from her, and kept her gaze out the window. After that, the tram moved swiftly, and when it stopped again, they were outside of a large hanger. "Last stop, ladies, after you." He stood up and ushered the gals out, following them out before taking the lead and taking them inside. In the hanger were dozens of tables, with packs, equipment and other supplies, and racks of weaponry lined the walls. In the back of the building, the Col. was sitting at a desk with 4 computer monitors splayed in front of her, another woman sitting with her, typing rapidly and watching the screens.

"Reporting as ordered Ma'am." Hunt said, snapping a crisp and precise salute, which, to her surprise, caused an odd flutter in the pit of Casey's stomach. Verning didn't rise, but retuned the salute.

"At ease, son." She turned to Casey, "Good Morning, Dr. Chambers, I trust you slept well?" She smiled as Casey's eyes snapped to focus and nodded. Casey was pleased that the Col. used her newly adopted title. "That's good, allow me to introduce to your team." She motioned and the tiny woman walked forward, and gave stood. "This is Doctor Eva Fleming, with a doctorate in space habitat construction, as well as several degrees in mechanical engineering. She's bright as a whip, but a little shy, I'm sure you'll get along just fine." Eva blushed slightly, but Casey, who was beginning to trust Verning, smiled and held out her hand. Eva gave a slight smile, and reached out, shaking Casey's hand.

"It's Nice to meet you, Dr. Fleming, and I look forward working with you." Eva mumbled back a thank you, and turned back to the Colonel.

"And, as you may have guessed, the second is Corporal Hunt." Casey's smile faltered, then flat lined. "He has been enlisted for the past four years, has proven himself in quite a few engagements, and has earned a spot on my personal staff." Casey's eyes were fixed on the Colonel with a look that women had been using for all of time, and could only be pulled off by a woman. Needless to say, Verning noticed, and was going to nip this in the bud right now.

(-)

_I've always wondered how you could get chewed out so bad it almost physically hurt, especially without the one chewing out raising their voice or losing their calm. I've… never been put in my place that thoroughly before. I discovered later that Verning was possibly the greatest Drill Sergeant the service had ever seen, and had considerable clout. She told Eva and Hunt to get their equipment, and then quietly took me over to a table, and gave me my… "briefing," followed by an actual briefing. The Nirvana was discovered a few hundred Astronomical Units outside Tarak/Mejale space, on a planet named Pangolis. It is a frontier planet untouched by the armed forces of our planets. An escort would be necessary the entire time planet side, which will be all of the time. And, Verning pointed out it will be simpler to have a soldier on my team. Well, I don't have to like it, but after looking though Hunt's records, he does seem to have skills that will complement us. If conditions permit, and the Col. finishes ok-ing the final list of personnel, we'll be departing aboard the Imperial tomorrow. Oh, and Sprinkles is speaking to me again._

**Resurrection log, Entry 4, day 4.**

_Well, after a long look at the expectations of coming days, I decided it would be best to place Sprinkles in with someone. Stacy agreed to take him in, so I can rest easy._

**Resurrection log, Entry 5, day 5.**

_Wow, it's been crazy these last couple of days. I've spent all but about six hours a day going over lists, gathering equipment, surveying the excavation gear. Oh, they also gave me a knife, to be carried at all times, no exceptions, including if ordered. This I can understand, as a knife is the single most useful tool ever created, and can even function as a weapon if you're pressed. I actually haven't gotten any sleep at all today…well, none of us have, although if you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at Hunt. Ass. Anyway, Eva has proven to be a reliable… I don't want to say assistant, she's smarter and prettier than I am… Ah, colleague, that's the word, sorry, but as I've said, I'm been up for 32 hours now, and lift off is in… crap, half an hour, and I've still got to finalize the lab equipment tally!_

**Resurrection log, Entry 6, day 7.**

_Sorry, it's been a day and a half since the "Imperial" took off. I have just recently woken up, they kept me sedated so we could rest, and I think to keep out of the way. I've been told it's going to be a two month trip, and the Colonel says I'm going to be kept busy every minute I'm not asleep. When I asked her if I would have time to do my log, she said no. Also, she said not to be "so damn formal" about it. She told me to consider it more as a personal journal, so that when I was marked off as a "Section 8" the Naval Psychologists can figure out what went wrong and maybe even what kind of food to occasionally push through the bars in my cage. I don't know if she was joking, she said it with a straight face._

_The ship is nice, for a flying metal cube hurtling through space at several hundred miles a second. It's a troop carrier, so it's roomy, built to house six battalions of troops with full kit, and is filled with only two, and the mass equivalent of three more in excavation and laboratory equipment. It's actually fairly roomy, and the barracks on the left side of the ship consists of girl's country. The combat troops have their own barracks separate from us, but I still get to bunk with Eva. She's really sweet, and so tiny! God, I wish my waist line was that thin. Whoop, there is mess call, I get back to writing as soon as I can. Good night._

**Well, Hope you enjoyed, and thanks again to Gungrave Company for reading the first part! And, glad I checked before I posted, Thank you as well Fractured Sanity, for the review. Ask and you shall recive, as I post this, (while watching NCIS, of course) I am already starting the 3****rd**** post (sorry, but Ziva just was wearing a baggy white long sleeved shirt with her hair down, and I lost my train of thought. Cote DePablo is stunning.) anyway, I'm going to pull a doozy in a chapter or 2. cheer, mates.**


	3. Pangolis, The Wreck Of The Nirvana

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

Alright, sorry if the last one was a little difficult to follow, I'm playing around with the switching back and forth between first and third person. Now, I want to say thanks again to Fractured Sanity and Gungrave Company.

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#3: Pangolis, The Nirvana's Final Rest**

**Casey Chambers log, Entry #1, Day 1.**

_I have restarted my log, with the starting date now that we have arrived in orbit Around Pangolis. I have another half hour still until we can make planet fall, so I've decided to start/update this._

_ During the two months we were on route, I spent the majority of my time on 4 things. Eating, sleeping, strength training and weapons training. Oh, I don't dislike Ethan anymore. After spending this much time with a person, you either won't hate them as much, or you will have killed one of you. But, for a knuckle dragger, he's not so bad. The first event that showed me he might not be a complete drain upon my time in the labs and was an incident during weapons training._

Casey looked at her schedule, displayed on her digital bulletin board at the head of her bunk as she absentmindedly scratched her bare midriff. As it was just her and her new friend Eva, she felt comfortable enough to sleep in just her underwear and socks. She hadn't really been surprised when the previous night Eva peeled down to her own lacey white bra and panties for sleep. (They later abolished this custom after their first night time alert and were forced to do two hours of drills in just their underwear. They upgraded their wardrobe to include baggy white t-shirts.) She looked over the list, and noted the first activity was calisthenics for an hour, and then first mess. She stretched and then went to wake Eva, as they had 10 minutes to report. She wanted to be on time, not just to satisfy her own punctuality, but also because she didn't really want to find out what the Colonel would cook up if she was late.

"Hoy, duchess, time to get up and face your public." She said, and slapped the small patch of thigh that stuck out from under the blankets. She yipped and sat upright. Now, these bunks were small, but the hell of it was that Eva was so small that her head didn't slam into the room of the one above her.

"'ey, what's all that about?" She asked blearily, rubbing her thigh.

"We have exercises in 9 minutes, and I don't want to be late." Casey stated simply, and turned to her footlocker and popped it open.

They arrived in the gymnasium 8 minutes later, in matching tight white shirts that ended at their bottom most ribs, short, skin tight black shorts, and boots. They had tied their hair into short ponytales. For the next hour and a half, a blonde Sergeant Major had them kick their own asses all over the gym. They arrived in the mess hall, more exhausted than either of them could ever remember being before. The both had a heaping plate of some yellow food, and a cup of strong coffee.

"Was wondering when you gals would be showing up." Hunt was saying around his own mound of food, as he slid onto bench across from them, and gave Eva one of his disarming smiles. Casey didn't like this, but she had no idea why.

"It's because that Sergeant hates us." Eva mumbled, her head resting in the nest of her arms.

"Which one?" He asked, shoveling, literally shoveling the food into his mouth.

"Jaclyn." Casey said, poking her own food with her spork.

"Sergeant _Major_ Jacky? She doesn't even hate her ex-husband, and she should, believe me, I've met the sod." He added just enough emphasis to Major that it was almost unnoticeable. Eva merely gurgled something, as Casey tasted a lump of the food. He shook his head, "anyway, you'll want to eat that, because you with me till afternoon for weapons training."

The weapons training took place in the secondary practice range. There was a fold out table in the middle of area, stacked with boxes of ammunition, different weapons, and an assortment of non lethal gadgets.

"Draw your Side arm." Hunt said to Casey, standing at the wood shelf on the range. The girls hadn't changed out of their workout kit, but, after a carefully worded warning from Hunt, no also had their side arms strapped to their waists. Hunt wore a simple one piece ship suit, his large knife hanging hilt down from his chest.

"Ok, Corporal." She said, sliding the weapon out and relishing the sound it made against the holster.

"Please, call me Ethan…" he looked at the weapon with bunched brows, "hey, let me see that for a second." She looked startled, not wanting to part with her weapon, but she handed it to him reluctantly. He took it, turning it around working the slide, ejecting the empty clip. His look changed to a smirk. "Well, aren't you a lucky girl." She hit him with a brilliant and well thought out remark.

"Huh?"

"This is not standard issue at all. This is a five-seven with built in suppressor, very nice tech. This is the same kind of gun that Sam Fisher used." He spun it, and returned it to her, butt first. She took it.

"Sam Fisher?" She had no idea what he was talking about.

"Sam Fisher, is the greatest dark ops agent that ever lived. He's said to be able to disappear into one shadow, and come out of another. Kill silently with anything. It's rumored he can eat brass cases and crap out full clips. He's legendary." He had a goofy smile plastered on his face as he reminisced about the stories he'd heard, but shook out quickly. He walked over to the table where the kit was laid out, and Eva was looking ot over. "Alright ladies, today were going over safety and terminology, and seeing as your both Doctors, you should be teaching me by the end."

___Each day went pretty much the same. Wake up, exercise, weapons training, lunch, Surgeon work, and sleep. Looking back, I guess it was a pretty boring routine, but I was too busy to notice, and with the company, I enjoyed myself. I am now proficient with any of the 6 basic types of infantry armaments, Pistol, Shotgun, Submachine Gun, Rifle, Assault weapons, and Light Machinegun, and once we land, they are even going to let me have a beautiful little weapon called an MP5. I am skilled with a Knife in either thrown or in melee combat and am confident I could handle myself in anything from a bar room brawl to a professional boxer. I've gained 10 pounds, but all muscle, on top of the 4 pounds of spare fat I lost. I also have this new feeling I can only guess is pure security and confidence in myself. Oop, there's the buzzer, see you ground side!"_

The dropship bucked as it hit a turbulent air pocket as it tore a fiery gash through the dusty atmosphere of the brown planet. Casey was glad she had taken the anti nausea pill before they'd launched. It was one of the many useful things from the ships surgeon during her informal internship. She was certified now in shipboard medicine and as a field medic. She had given Eva a pill, but Hunt had denied, being used to orbital insertions. With a sickening lurch that threatened Casey's stomach even with the drugs, the ship nosed up, and then landed with a thud. After a few seconds, the hydraulics released, and the large rear ramp dropped into a broad field of brown knee high grass. The marine escort worked fast and efficiently, unbolting and preparing the three jeeps that would take them to the site.

"Why couldn't we just land at the site?" Eva asked, as she stepped of the passenger ramp toward the front of the triangular ship and onto into the grass. It went up to her waist. Hunt, Then Casey followed, stepping gingerly into the field.

"We don't really know. The sensors pick up some kind of unidentified energy spike whenever we approach the crash by air. We think it's a anti ship weapon of some kind, maybe an energy projector, blows the engines, but doesn't affect the ground crews. We lost 2 dropships before we attempted to go in on the ground." While he was talking, the jeeps pulled up. "All right, ladies, this ones ours," he walked toward an empty vehicle, "it's a fair distance away, just at the base of that mountain." He pointed the landmark hazy in the distance. "Check your armor, and your weapons. Roughly 80% of our landings here are contested by the locals, so be ready." He adjusted his own armor and then climbed inside. Each of the girls were wearing the same kit as when they first boarded the ship, save they had now a black Kevlar vest, and their lab coats had been treated with a special solution and braided with a resistant micro weave that would add extra protection. Casey had her newly unwrapped MP-5 slung over her back, while Eva and Hunt both were carrying custom M4 Carbines. They climbed in, Eva grabbing shot gun while Casey climbed into the back. With a grumble, the jeep growled to life, and Hunt drove off, following the other two jeeps.

They made good time from the landing site, but it was still about a twenty minute drive to the crash. The flatlands slowly changed to gently rolling hills, and as that happened, they began to come to a well worn path through the grass between hills, and the wreckage of jeeps, and curious vehicles with two front wheels and a single back one. The progress was slower, and as they got closer, the wrecks multiplied. Casey was curious about why they would travel down a path that was so obviously perfect for ambush.

"Why are their so many wrecks, is this the only way to get to the site?" Hunt focused on driving while he answered.

"No, but it's the clearest. These hills are an odd formation, as other than the mountain, they area around the crash are flat for a good distance. The site is rimmed, like a crater, but then the hills are spread out in a haphazard way, almost like ripples. We'd go though the hills, but there are at least three different groups of people out there. At least on this trail, we stand a chance… Aw hell, they're here, check you weapons, and pray the escorts can handle them!" The gunner on the turret in the first vehicle opened up with a chugging noise, as it sprayed the hill to the left of the road. A few seconds later, the second gunner caught sight of the target and opened fire. After a minute of this, and to Casey's displeasure, a spray of bullets across the hood of their car, the front cars tires exploded and it veered of the road. With it gone, a shoulder launched missile smacked into the left side of the second escort, flipping it of the road and into a heap. Hunt swore as he rolled through the smoke, he could see the rim of the crash crater. "hold on girls, I'm going for it!" The girls didn't even have time to respond as Hunt floored the accelerator, and swerved violently as a second rocket hit where they just were. They fishtailed around a bend, their progress followed closely by machine gun fire from one of the three wheeled vehicles. The ground sloped up quickly as two more of the vehicles swarmed along the hills, opening fire and shooting the back window with spider webs of cracks. Casey wasn't sure if she screamed until she felt a lurch and the bottom dropped out from under her, then she was sure she was screaming. The jeep flew over the rim of the crater, landing about 40 feet in, the axels snapping and flipping the car onto it's roof, sliding another twenty yard before it came to a stop, smoking.

**Casey Chambers log, Entry #2, Day 5.**

_The arrival to the site was a bit turbulent, and…well, upside down, but we got here. It is magnificent. From what our underground scans have been able to tell us, the wreck appears to be lying on its right side wing, buried to the point where only the top left side of the ships upper portion remain visible. The visible portion is dirty and scratched, showing signs of major abuse that I would not identify as resultant from the crash. Another peculiarity that shows up is that there is no rusting or other degradation that comes from exposure on the visible portion. It's hard to determine from the scan data, but there appears to be scarring all over the hull under ground of the type present on the visible surface._

**Casey Chambers log, Entry #3, Day 7.**

_Well, after 3 days of transport, and another 2 of setup, the excavation machines are finally running. The noise seems to have drawn more attention from the locals, as 2 raids have already been attempted, and the snipers are kept quite busy at night with their scouts and fire bombers. The soil excavated is being used to build a defensive mound around the craters edge, and series of walls to help bulk up the perimeter. I don't know why I am adding that. Or this. I think I almost had a moment with Eth... er, Cpl. Hunt, last night. We were sitting by the one of the big bon fires last night, Eva being dossed out in a chair near by. I was slightly tipsy (I will say this about our armed forces, they got this part right. When off duty, a soldier is permitted to consume alcoholic beverages, subject to revocation if conduct becomes an issue. It keeps the mudfoots happy.) and he got me to laugh. He kept it up for a time, the said something… uh… oh, I don't remember, but whatever it was, it stopped my laughter cold. In a good way, though. I think. Anyway, he looked into my eyes, and my stomach tried its best to turn itself inside out. The awkwardness was palpable. Thankfully, a night raid busted out then, and in the confusion, the moment ended. I just don't know. arrgh. Oh well, I'm knackered, so… logging out._

**Casey Chambers log, Entry #4, Day 10**

_Three days since the last entry, but that's just due to lack of happenings. Excavations continue, and we are nearing the rim of the top of the ship. Eva and myself have been studying the hull, and the deep scans, trying to find a way in. We cannot wait for the entirety of the ship to be excavated, which is currently estimated at just over 2 years. I understand the urgency has something to do with budgets and Upper Echelon politics, but I think it could also have to do with the fact that If the locals ever amassed any organized strike, we couldn't hold up against their numbers. There has also been rumors of strange lights outside of the camp spreading through the ranks, a lot of them are uneasy. Will update again when I have more._

**Casey Chambers log, Entry #5, Day 12.**

_All right, after immense scanning and 3d modeling, I think we have a way in. The main body seems to have torn loose where it joins the central ring near the upwards part of the ship. It's hard to tell from X-rays and radar alone, but it appears to have an air lock at one end of the break, and possibly be open at the other. After conferring with the Col., the plan has been set to dig a shaft straight down to that section, and try to broach it there. Estimated time, 4 days._

After five days of excavation, and another of prep work, the shaft was stable, and rope pulley was secured so that an Initial excavation team could descend. The shaft went down for about a mile, and now had a small earthen room where Casey now sat, frowning. She had been down in the pit for over a day now. The hull was indeed torn free in this area, but sealed with sturdy airlock door on BOTH ends. The curious part of the damage was that it was battle damage, not from the stress of the atmosphere entry. Amazingly, she'd thought at first, a small keypad was still intact and powered, but that excitement had faded three hours ago after her thousandth attempt to open the damned door. So now she sat, tired, dirty and sweating, stripped down to a once white tank top and her pants, nursing a small burn she had acquired removing the pad and screwing with the wires. She had sent up a message, and now Eva Was on her way down with a small robot to aid in her trying to crack the door open. It was unusually hot down there, but she had no idea why, and was too frustrated to think about it anyway.

"Hello, Casey?" The small voice sounded flat and dull in the earthen space.

"Over around the bend." She called back, hoping she didn't convey in voice the frustration she felt.

"Well, you certainly man a hell of a mess, didn't you?" She was surprised to hear the deeper, male voice sounded behind her. She turned and saw Ethan leading the diminutive Doctor. His cocky smile widened as she turned around, and he saw the full damage. "Damn." She frowned deeper.

"Do you have the robot?" She ignored the man, and talked to her friend. Eva nodded, and handed her a small metal rectangle about the size of a conventional calculator. Casey pressed a spot on the rectangle, and the silver surfaces began to move and bend. In a few seconds, a 6 inch tall bipedal little robot made entirely of flat surfaces and connective struts. The little head was a tiny horizontal blade with two dark blue LED lights for eyes, suspended an inch and a half away front the body. Despite the sleek look of the robot, it was a simple model lacking in personality but able to interpret a large range of vocal commands and make choices based on situational awareness. It's designated title was etched into its shiny chest plate. Casey looked closely, reading, the walked back to the wall with the tangle of multi-colored wires sticking from it.

"Evie," she said, "I want you to do whatever it takes to get this damned door open. Acknowledge." The small device nodded, the hopped from the palm of her hand, catching the loose wires and pulling itself into the hole where the keypad had once been. It was gone for about twenty minutes before the glow of its little returned to the socket, and Casey bent over to it.

"Ma'am," it beeped in a small, heavily synthesized female voice, "The locking mechanism is now deactivated, and the hydraulics disengaged. The device that controls the opening of the door was damaged beyond my ability to repair, however, simple crowbar should give you sufficient force to open the door." She stopped talking, and Casey picked her up, triggering her to fold back up to the rectangle, and then slipping it into her left ass pocket. She turned to yell at Ethan to get her what she needed to get into that ship, but he was gone. A few minutes later, he strolled back in.

"Alright, I briefed the surface, and they and their preparing the teams and getting the lab equipment ready to bring down." Casey was starring at him in clear agitation, and was clearly about to go off explosively. He held his hand up in attempt to clam the dirty girl, and cut her off as she started to turn red. "But, because I am already down here, they gave us the green light, and tossed this down to me." He grinned his best, and withdrew a crowbar. His action had the desired effect, and Casey grew even madder and redder. "Want the honors?" he held out the crowbar, and while it wasn't to drain the red from her face, it was enough to take the murder out of her eyes. She snatched it roughly away, and went to work on the door. It could be opened with the crowbar now that the hydraulics were out, but it was still slow moving apart several hundred pounds of solid metal. In about 5 minutes of strenuous effort, she had worked out her anger, and prized the door open enough that even the Cpl. could squeeze his beefy frame through. Casey adjusted her glasses, and dusted her self in futility as she walked to get her coat. Ethan walked up and put a hand on her shoulder.

"You can go in first, but gun out, watch your corners, presumed hostile conditions." He said as she picked up her coat. She slid it on, and met his eyes, her own positively sparkling with excitement. He knew she needed to be the one that was first through the door; having read her report and having gotten to know her, he knew the resentment she would feel if it went otherwise. He was greatly relived when she agreed, finished straightening her coat, and in a fluid motion drew her pistol and behaved like a soldier. He was… impressed.

**Casey Chambers log, Entry #6, Day 16.**

_It is glorious, and more than I could have ever dreamed! Everything is covered in a fine layer of dust, is dark, but we have found that there is still power aboard the ship, although even Evie cannot get lights working. I doesn't matter though, even with everything slanted and having to manually open every door, it's marvelous. In the last couple days, we've spread out into the left wing of the ship according to the scans. From what we have found, it seems that it was the living quarters for the males in the ship. … It's odd, there's a footlocker in one of the rooms that's dented, but appears to be labeled "E. Hunt." Strange that I would notice, but Hunt can trace his roots till back till the launch, but doesn't remember if any were on the journey. Anyway, we're breaching into the area we be to be the engineering spaces today, so I've got to gear up._

The water pump chugged loudly in the hallway as it pumped water into the device that was prying the largest door they had yet encountered open. They were three decks above the breach, and directly forward of the main engine spaces. It was strange, because there seemed a second engine a double dozen or so decks below this primary one, and when they had breached the other side of the break in the hull, the alloys and design of the ship changed drastically. Casey's mind stopped its meander as with a loud screeching and popping, the door groaned and slid open. Already, Casey could tell this area was different; the air was at least 5 degrees cooler, and there was a trace of ambient moisture. Casey shifted her glasses, which were giving her live data and tied up her hair, which was still wet. She was wearing the same outfit she had when Evie had cracked the door, though the tank top had 3 more days of accumulated grime on it, and was hanging a bit more loosely. She hadn't showered, or even been to the surface in 4 days, she had been too engrossed in absorbing everything about the ship. She had relished though she had jumped at the chance to run the hose from the pump through her hair. Until she had run water through it, she hadn't known anything was off; no she felt almost human again, if a dirty and probably smelly one. She slid out her pistol, got the nods from Ethan and Eva, and then proceeded into the room. Her gun arm and jaw both dropped as she entered, Eva emitted a small gasp, and Ethan gave a short, explosive expletive that summed up all their feelings perfectly.

They were in a cavernous room, so big that the flashlights couldn't pick out the far side of the room in any direction. Looking up, a neat smattering of catwalks surrounded a large round object that occupied the majority of the space. It gave off no light, but when they shone the flashlights on it, it reflected a slightly bluish color. They fanned out, sweeping the area until all had called in the all clear. Casey and Eva holstered their guns, and headed separately to points of interest from their sweeps, and Hunt tried to watch everything at once. After about 5 minutes of probing, Eva called out.

"Hey guys, I found something." She was calm, so they finished what they were doing, and then wandered over to Eva. "Look." She pointed to an object on the floor in a corner. It looked like an egg that was about two feet tall, white with black charred spots, and a flat black surface that covered about a quarter of its total size.

"What do you think it is?" Casey asked as Eva picked the object and inspected it.

"Don't know, but there is a data port on the back; give me Evie and lets see if we can get anything off it." Casey handed the small robot to her, and she opened it and gave it instructions. The little robot swapped its right hand into a matching jack, and plugged it into the egg shaped device. After a few minutes of silence, the robots eyes dimmed and went out. Then with a harsh crackle and a shower of sparks, the robot was shot back at the people who were watching. The robot smacked into Casey, who yelped, but still managed to catch the small frame. She was about to exclaim when she caught the egg floating above the deck plates, with faint blue letters etched on the black screen.

ARE YOU FRIENDS? All three stared at the egg, until, after getting approval by eye from the other two, Casey answered.

"Who are you?" Her voice didn't tremble like she thought it would. After a short pause, the screen blinked, and new words appeared.

I AM PAEXIS. WHO ARE YOU?

"I am Casey, this is Eva, and he is Ethan."

ARE YOU FRIENDS? Casey decided to chance the answer.

"Yes, we are friends. Do you know what happened to the Nirvana?"

FRIENDS. WILL YOU HELP ME SAVE MY FRIENDS? Casey looked to the others, getting nods, and then accented.

"Yes, we would like to help you. Can you tell us what happened?" The egg was still for almost a full minute, and then the single word YES glowed to life. At about that time, they three noticed a shimmering blue radiance growing behind them. They turned, and saw the light building within the enormous sphere. It continued to build in radiance, until they actually felt heat radiating from it. At that point, they panicked and bolted for the door, the light and heat building. About half way to the door, the bottom fell out from under Casey, and she fell, screaming. She spun through shimmering blue space, screaming, but seeing Eva and Hunt both falling with her. Suddenly, Casey lost her senses and faded from existence.

**Alright, I don't think I've ever worked on a chapter of anything for three days before, and to the two of you reading, I really hope it works for you. And, Thank you **_**Fractured**_** for your continued reviews. I like the writing logs from a female mind perspective, especially because I can put the things they would never say allows. But should I continue with it, or just use Italicized thoughts as the action is happening. Oh, I also like using it to break up the narrative and changing the… summarizing the parts I don't want to cover. Anyway, let me know what you think, I have to figure out how to start this next chapter**


	4. The Most Likely Scenario

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

**Alright, not a lot of preamble here, just gonna say thanks to Fractured Sanity for keeping up, and to anyone else whose been reading. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for reading, and voicing concern about the weaponry I chose to incorporate into the story. I could point out that most personal armaments featured in the show are of a bullet like design, and laser/energy armaments are seen only in limited use (Meia, Jura, Lightsaber, ship based weaponry,). So, basically I want to use familiar and visually pleasing armaments (And come on, I threw in a transformer!) that I am familiar with. So, as I am lazy, I will give two possible explanations for this. A) they literally blew themselves backwards, sometime in the distant past (Bout 200-300 years prior to the start) and had to restart their arms race. B) that like it just wasn't cost effective to make personal weaponry based on laser/energy technology and the current art of engineering. I could support this further, but I'd just be wasting your time, and thank you again for showing interest, and I'll try and throw in some stuff for you! (Oh, just remembered, the #1 most important rule of writing. "Never lat the facts get in the way of the story!")**

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#4: The Most Likely Scenario**

Casey became aware that she was alive again due to a sharp pain prickling across her limbs every few seconds. All she could remember was heat and a bright, light blue light. The small spike of pain flared again on her arm, this time accompanied by a tiny female voice.

"Miss Chambers? Miss Chambers wake up!" There was a hint of urgency in the voice, and Casey grudgingly opened her eyes. At first glance, she saw she was in a bed, under a white sheet up to her shoulders, arms protruding, in a gray metal room. The pain was coming from the little robot Evie, who was periodically pinching her.

"Ouch!" She said and sat up as the small robot pinched again. The robot backed up a step, and averted her glowing blue eyes. Casey looked confused at the robots unusually amount of expressiveness, and took a brief look around and noticed…

"Why am I _naked?_" She squeaked, clutching up sheet to cover her chest.

"I don't know, ma'am." The little robot said, and Casey swore she could see pleading in the little LED lights. She motioned for Evie to turn, then got up and folded the sheet into a type of tube dress, like she would a bathroom towel.

"Ok, Evie, what the hell is going on here?" She found her glasses on a table buy the bed, and slid them on, the first stirrings of panic fluttering in her gut as she took her first real look around. She was greatly relived when she looked around and saw Eva Sleeping in a bed across the room, and her glasses displayed healthy vitals on her friend. She turned back to the little robot, who was wringing her hands in apprehension. "So, what happened, are we still on the _Nirvana_?"

"I don't know what happened, ma'am. I have no memories other data on you, Eva, and Ethan, with the exception of when I powered up in the pocket of your pants over there." Evie pointed to a dirty pile of clothes. "As to where we are, we are currently aboard the carrier ship _Half-moon_ in route to rendezvous with the _Nirvana_ at the Refitting station _Mendel_.

"What? How long have I been knocked out?" Casey asked incredulously. The robot looked so sheepish that she felt guilty, so she snapped "and where the hell did you get the new voder?"

"I d-d-don't know ma'am. I patched in to the ships wireless network, and the level of security and sophistication in the systems is absolutely primitive. Plus, the date in they system, if correct, is almost 600 years earlier that my earliest entry. My last memory that I can feel as my own, is when I linked with that device on the _Nirvana._ I was fused with something… but I'm not sure what. As far as I can guess, I'd say that joining with that gave me the spark that bred my newfound… personality. I was given an information packet, all information about the _Nirvana_ that has happened in the 2 years prior the date that the ship says it is." Casey was quiet for a long minute, staring into space (literally and figuratively, as there was a port hole on the wall she was facing.)

"Evie," she said in a calm voice that was shaking slightly, "in your opinion, would you say that the ships calendar is accurate?" The little robot looked so sad that it was painful, and Casey wondered how it could do that without a face.

"Based on relevant data and the ships star maps, I would have to say yes ma'am." Casey sighed, but wasn't really that upset, all things considered. She wondered if it would be different if she was alone.

"Alright, Evie, go ahead and call me Casey, as were are friends. You said Eth… Corporal Hunt was here, how do you know?" Evie looked pleased for the first time since she had begun to radiate emotions.

"First of, I have the three of you in my electrical impulse tracking device, so if any off is within a mile of my, I can home in on the electrical signature of your nervous systems. And I have seen him, he is on the other side of the ship in the men's quarters, still asleep." Casey though quickly.

"Ok, good job, Evie. Do you have anyway to transcribe a map of the ship for me to use?" The little robot nodded and hopped of the bed, and dashed to a dark corner of the room, digging through the pile of filthy clothes. A few seconds later, she emerged Casey's data pad.

"The ships map and points of interest are uploaded, plus I have lined myself in on the wireless network, and you can communicate through the tablet if I am out of vocal range." Casey scanned the map and the legend quickly and noticed that the ship was a very archaic design. In fact, she remembered seeing a similar model in a museum when she was younger.

"Alright, thank you. I want you to go to the Hunt's room, and get his lazy ass up. If you succeed, have him meet us in the mess room in about an hour. I'm going to try and wake Eva, and catch a shower and see if I can get my clothes washed. Evie nodded, climbed the rivets in the wall, and disappeared into the ductwork. Before trying to rouse her friend, she unwound her sheet and placed it on her bed. She then proceeded to give herself a quick going over, and, to her relief, found nothing wrong. Not being in a hurry now, she carefully made a more stable "toga-ish" covering. With that in place, she walked over and gathered up the pile of clothes, and separated hers from Eva's. Now that she wasn't wearing them, she could see just how dirty they really were. She shook her head, and then turned to wake her friend.

"Oh. My. God. This is the best thing I have ever felt." Casey said in almost a moan of ecstasy. The showers were six 3x3 cubicles side by side in a compartment that was only slightly larger than the combined cubical. The water was piped through skinny, browning pipes, and split into three trickling streams. They had each received a packed of shampoo/soap that was the size of a ketchup packed. But, the water was hot, and the soap enough to lather up and get her scalp clean.

"I know! I can't believe it's been over a week since I've got to take a show." The walls between the stalls were around five feet tall; the came up to Casey's shoulders, and she couldn't even see the top of Eva's head in the stall next to her.

"Yeah, my bathroom has been the one thing I've missed most on this entire trip. And it doesn't look like I am going to get to see it again anytime soon. Hell, some of the fixtures I have haven't been invented yet." Her voice and face had a hint remorse in them, but then it changed to a thoughtful look. "Hmm… this situation presents a unique opportunity. You know, maybe I even invented some of it, in the future here. It would explain why I've heard the toilet referred to as a "Chamber's Pot."

"No, I think that on dates back a lot earlier that this. How did we manage it, anyway? I thought I spontaneously combusted or got hit by a booby trap or something. Jumping backward in time was about the 12th though down the list of things I would have thought." Casey saw Eva's arms raise over the rim as she spoke, enjoying the water.

"I've less than no idea. But whatever happened, Evie, the little robot, has a personality and the ability to convey emotion nonverbally, without a face. She did say she got some data on the events in this time, going back about three years. She is off trying to rouse our soldier friend right now, and they're going to meet us in the mess in about 20 minutes."

Ten minutes later, the girls were both wrapped in towels, walking through the hallways of "ladies country" toward the clothes washing area of the ship. The moved quickly, not liking being naked in a new environment and time period. As they had no clothes other the ones they had apparently arrived with, they had thrown them into the wash before they had showered. They pulled the clothes out, stuck them in the dryer, and five minutes later, the clothes were dry enough to wear. They put them one, covering each other, and then departed for the mess room.

Evie informed the three of them that they were approximately 600 years in the past from their origin, and three years forward of when the _Nirvana_ defeated the mechanical fleet from a planet called Earth. After that, the ship was embroiled in the shifting politics of two planets going though a major shift of their major belief system. After recruiting a small group of men in an experiment of cohabitation, they were at the center of a terrorist attack from people unwilling to except the new truths. For several months, they were target of a multitude of attacks from several groups. Ultimately, this was followed by the near collapse of the government of Tarak at the hands of insurrectionists. This was countered by direct intervention by the pirates, and increased public support. Now, the expanded crew was just returning from the two planets with an expanded crew for their new mission. The ship went was in for a massive refitting to take the expanded crew and to be able to go without resupply for years if necessary, based on the needs of the increased consumption. The middle of the ship had been expanded outward into a large ring, and the second ship that was under Captain Vivans command was being enlarged and attached to the center. The process was on the eve of its completion, and they were aboard the ship full of new recruits. They would dock and be inserted within two hours. Unfortunately, that was the extent of Evies knowledge, and most of that had been gained from the ships own databanks. They had a rough idea about what was happening, but not enough for comfort. They had no idea what had sent them back, or who it had told them to assist.

After twenty minutes of sitting in the mess area, they had all noticed that the atmosphere really was not what they would expect in a mixed ship. People would come and go, but always with others of the same sex and would cast suspicious glances at the other gender and even at the three of them, huddled together with a small robot. The smell, or stink rather, was the same. All in all, it really hit home that they were in a different time. They worked out that it Hunt should go shower and get his uniform cleaned, and they would meet prior to the transfer. He stood up and headed to the men's side of the ship, as three of others walked in. These were the first ones that Casey had actually noticed.

One was possibly the largest man she had ever seen. If she had seen him from the back first, she would have thought he was a bear in a vest and baggy jeans. He wore oil stained baseball cap with the letters A.R.C. printed on the front backward over rough black hair and a dark t-shirt under the vest. The next was almost as tall, but t thin as the large man was thick. He wore what looked like a brown military uniform, although Casey didn't recognize. He had short cropped blonde hair, and a tight mustache and goatee. If Casey had to describe his look in one word, it would have had to be… pompous. He stood stiffly while the large one stood loose, and the third seemed to be brimming with pent up energy. He was of a medium build, she thought, but it was hard to tell as he was clothed in a billowing black cloak. He had even features, and a short tangle of brown hair, and was talking loudly to his companions.

"Now, over these past two years, I have realized what it is about the joining of the two races that is the best, and what had been missing from the entirety of male culture up to this point."

"When the hell did you become a scholar?" The blonde one asked.

"Piss off, Vinn. Since when do you have to be a scholar to make basic observations?" His eyes swept the room briefly, and stopped on Casey, who felt her hair raise as the eyes locked with hers. "Here, gentlemen, is the perfect example to illustrate my point." He gave a sweeping gesture that included Eva. "Our civilization was missing beauty, which is actually obvious, because when you get down to it, women are beauty. I mean, here we have two perfect examples of what I'm saying. Look at this one… um, what's your name, honey?" He paused, looking at Casey.

"Doctor Chambers" she said, with enough ice that her breath almost fogged.

"Ah thank you, doctor. Take the doctor here, a perfect build modeling elegance and efficiency. Then, you look at…

"Doctor Fleming." Eva answered, as neutral as Casey was cold.

"…Doctor Fleming here, who is pretty to the point she looks almost ornamental. The very diversity of their beauty has been a lack that sadly, we have only very recently been able to see." He finished with a very self satisfied smirk, which then disappeared and he looked embarrassed and cleared his throat. "Sorry if I seemed rude, ladies...er, Doctors, I just had to finish my point before these two got distracted by something shiny or the like…" He trailed of as the large one slugged him in the arm, the force of which rolled him out of the way, and in the same movement extended his hand to the girls.

"Sorry about him," he gestured at the cloaked one with a nod, "we don't let him out of his box much and he gets kind of excited. Names John." Casey and Eva both shook hands, noting how he probably could have snapped the bones in their arms with a grip if he'd wanted to. The blonde man stepped forward and held out his hand, the pompous feeling dissipating and being replaced by a familiarity with formality.

"… and I am Corporal Alexander Vinn." his handshake was crisp and just the right length of time to convey friendly. And finally, the third shook hands and introduced himself as Jack. They quickly explained that they had no time to chat, as they had been aboard the first experiment aboard the _Nirvana_ and needed to help with the offloading once they docked. They grabbed a sandwich and disappeared down the spine of the ship, and the girls walked back to their rooms. There, Casey worked out a routine with Evie to record everything that she could from that point forward, and copy it to her datapad. They would figure out what to do about memory later, as she had 250 terabytes of memory, so they would be good for a few months.

The unloading had gone smoothly, and all 300 of the new crew were unloaded and assigned billets in the _Nirvana_ in just under 3 hours. It was just passing 2300 when Casey and Eva arrived in their quarters in the right arm of the ship, and Ethan received his in the left, those being the men and women's quarters. As they passed into the ship, one by one, each received two ship suits to supplement to add to whatever they packed until they had an opportunity to acquire more. The room was sparse, a square with a door, beds and dressers against the left and right walls, and a blank wall directly ahead, which Casey was already making mental plans to modify. As the door snapped closed, Casey was hit with a wave of exhaustion. She changed quickly, so tired that she didn't care if Eva saw her naked, and climbed into the soft bed. He last though before she went under was wondering how the assignment of duties tomorrow morning was going to go.

Casey dove sideways, the force of the explosion lifting her and sending her sliding on her stomach across the metal floor. Her back burned, and she reached back and pulled a two inch long piece of shrapnel out from just below her shoulder blade, blood welling form the wound.

"Get down, their lobbing grenades!" a voice shouted. _Thanks for the ****ing warning! _She thought explosively, getting to her knees and watching as a string of light beams sliced a person in front of her in half, showing blood in an arc, and explosions chained behind her. She could hear the impacts of the energy slugs on the other side of the makeshift barricade.

"Hurry up and get some rockes on those beetles before they charge the line!" she heard the hum of the a beetles laser cannon charging, and crawled forward as the beam of light sliced through the barricade behind her, melting the metal and setting air aflame. She found a rocket launcher clucked in the hands of a charred figure, and pried it loose, shouldering it and standing up. The missile roared down range, impacting and exploding beneath the massive red robot, flipping it up and exposing the damaged belly plates to the hail of defender fire. She threw up the launcher in defense as one of the thin agile seeker robots dashed forward, slashing with its energy blade, knifing clean though the launcher, and cutting deep into her shoulder. She screamed; bring up the bisected weapon, and slamming it on the robots head. The tube caught on its head, and she kicked it in the chest as she fell backwards. The rocket in the chamber triggered as the robot tried to free itself, and detonated in a ball of flame. As she rose shakily to her feet, a hail of energy slug swept low, slicing through her legs, and bringing her face first to the ground. She crided out, but knew it was futile, even before another burst climbed up her back and ended her life.

Casey sat up strait in bed, her eyes clicking open, and the pain of the dream fading slowly from her limbs. _What the hell was that?_ She thought as the small alarm clock started buzzing, signaling time to get up and greet her first day aboard the ship. Eva grumbled and rolled over, and finally rose, stretching. She grabbed her clothes and followed Casey to the showers. She was quite the whole way there, waking up, parts of the dream fading with the fog of sleep. By the time they had reached the large bath compartment Casey had stopped shaking, and after a real shower she felt fine, the dream fading in severity until she was no longer fretted. The girls met with Hunt and went together into the mess hall, which is where they were told to report when they had checked in last night. They were considerably early, and grabbed an empty table, and were absolutely thrilled to find a row of coffee pots bubbling on a counter. Ethan got up, and a few minutes later returned with three steaming mugs. The room slowly filled as the clock ticked down the 10 minutes that remained before they were supposed to meet. The atmosphere was tense, but not rigid like the one they had experienced on the military ship. The underlying feel was more relaxed, with but with the same calm confidence of people who were experts at what they do. At a minute before, people who looked markedly different in… stance, the way they moved and held themselves, entered, and moved up to the front of the room.

What had caught Casey's attention was that the three men she had met the previous night, Vinn, John, and Jack, were standing near what she guessed were the doors into the kitchen. But, they were not grouped together like she would have thought, but standing next to girls. From left to right, she examined the people up front.

Farthest left was the man called Vinn, standing at attention, and next to him was a woman with the most impressive length of blonde hair she had ever seen and emerald eyes. Overall, the image she got from this woman (and she was most definitely a woman, not a girl) was that of someone who maximized her physical appearance. Her hair was thick, full, and reached down to just above her ankles, and was shiny to the point of actually reflecting light. She wore a skin tight black number, part frock, split on the side to the hip up both legs, then moving up and split in the front starting below the navel, and up to the neck. The remaining material was opened up like petals, coving her breasts, back, and sleeves joined in a large metal ring that rested in the hollow of where her clavicles met. She wore a saber on her waist.

Next was the large man, John, who towered above a shrewd looking woman with spiky light blue hair and very light greenish blue eyes that missed nothing. On her face was a strange black object that had claws wrapping above and bellow her left eye, and Casey thought it might serve the same type of function as her glasses. She was wearing a skin tight black and white full body flight suit, and no skin was visible bellow her neck. Furthermore, she seemed to be wearing a heavily padded vest that ended at the bottom of her ribcage, neck, and mid-upper arms, including rather bulbous shoulder protrusions.

After them, Jack stood with a stupid grin across his face, and a hard edged looking woman with short green hair and brilliantly purple eyes. There was a hint of both good humor and anger in her eyes. Her base outfit seemed to be a purple leather one piece bathing suit without shoulder straps and an open neck, open in places and with crosshatched strips of leather in various areas. Her arms were completely encased in long sleeved gloved extended up into shoulder pads, free from the body piece, but connected in a collar around her neck. This outfit was rounded out with thigh high purple leather strap up boots with thick black cuffs.

The final pair was completely unknown to Casey, and if possible, stood out even more than the others.

The female had fiery red hair hanging to her lower back, with crystal blue eyes and a friendly smile. She had a skin tight black tank top cut just under her breasts, with a light tan long sleeved high shouldered jacket top with red trim, and a matching mini skirt and shin high boots. She had a teardrop shaped pendant necklace. Compared to the rest, she was simply dressed. The man had tufty blue spiked hair held partially in check with a striped bandana, and dark brown eyes. He wore a tight black long sleeved shirt under a loose fitting button up bright orange shirt. His pants were slightly strange, black that flared out far before tucking into black heeled boots.

Casey was having a problem reconciling her emotions and prior in head pictures with the people she was seeing in front of her now. She wanted to laugh, shout, and cry all at once, and was having keeping her face under control. Even with the heavy distortion of time and the grapevine effect, she recognized exactly who each one of these people was; Jura Basil Elden, Meia Gisborn, Barnette Orangello, Hibiki Tokai, and Dita Liebely. Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs as several things hit home.

That despite the glaring improbability that she had traversed backwards in time, she really did believe she was on the _Nirvana_.

She was now confronted with the hero's of Mejale, who she had spent all of her spare time for years studying and researching.

She actually was crying a little, but only tears, and she though more from excitement then anything else.

** Alright, obviously I lied about not having a lot of crap to say in the beginning, but to be fair, I wrote it in 2 parts. I like getting reviews, and like addressing them, because, seeing as I do not read this crap, it gives me a chance to hone it down and give a more enjoyable narrative to you, the people patient enough to give it a looksie. Now, I know I breached at least TWO major Science Fiction faux pas , that being time travel, and dream sequence (which, for anyone familiar with my other … "works"… knows I'm fond of abusing.). But, thank you, both, Fractured Sanity, (Same as of the Library Forums, right?) and Random Reader, for comments and suggestions, and most of all, patronage.**

**I will continue to answer questions and address concerns to the best of my abilitys, and if you really want in depth kinda stuff, hit me with a Private message, and I'll get back to you, proably same day (most likely not on the 10****th****, though, because **_**In This Moment**_** will be playing on the Silver Star Stage at Mayhem) and I've a computer class, so I check my mail constantly. Also, I know I sound like a sarcastic dick in most of my replies, (And I am one in real life, BELIEVE ME, but I am not trying to be, and I am giving your comments serious consideration, and appreciate any feedback. ANY!**


	5. The Discovery

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

**Wow, my data type stuff said I ain't looked at this since September, and since my memory lasts about um… what was I talking about… uhhhhhh…poop. Oh well, watchin' **_**Parenthood**_** and I love it. Anyway, I don't remember what references I made, so If you've queries, hit me up, really, any of the one person who reads this dreck. Oh, and just cause I like the word, here's **_**Irksome.**_** Ha!**

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#6: The Discovery**

Training for the Spec Ops group was harder than the faux military by a manner of about 50%, Casey thought as she spun through air and landed with a dull thud on her back.

"Damn it, Chambers, your supposed to roll with the motion and light back up!" Sergeant Zimmerman yelled as Casey took a second to catch her breath. Her sparing partner move forward, crouched low and wary. With a lightning quick move, the second dove forward, burring her knew into the mat where Casey's face had been. She had rolled sidways a half rotation, and by pushing her self with her arms, swept her opponents legs out from benieth her, before turning around and pouncing. She managed to get an arm around the other throat, and while on her back, began to squeeze. The other girls elbow struck backwards, hitting her ribs and causeing pain. It lifted up again, and repeated, and Casey's grip loosened slightly. The girl twisted, and the elbow found her face, which released the arm completely. Casey rolled away, and brought hr hand up to her bleeding nose. Now she was pissed. She moved forward, traded a series of body shots, and retreated a step. The other, thinking it was a disengage, let her guard down for a second, and Casey rushed forward. Cupping her hands, she caught the other girl behind the head, used her to pull herself up, and brought her right knee into the girls left side. She then unclasped her hands and allowed the other to fall to the floor. When she attempted to pick her self up, Casey applied a strong kick to her opponent's side, and she stayed down.

"Very good, Chambers. Flips some water on Gisborn, and then get out of here, and send in Fleming and Orangello in here." Zimmerman said, and offered a metal pail of cold water to the bruised girl. She took it as the Sarge left the room, and dumped the bucket over Meia's head.

"Ahhh! What?" She looked up, water matting her blue hair, and a really beauty of shiner growing over her left eye.

"Coach says were done for today, no marks." She held out her hand, and helped the damp girl to her feet. They were wearing matching gray T-Shirts and black shorts with some soft, protective foot gear, standard garb for the brutal sparring exercises. "Lets go change, and hit chow call; I'm hungry enough to eat a _man_." The joke was old, but Meia laughed anyway. It had taken hold in Ladies country, and been used by almost all of the girls aboard at least once. Both girls grabbed one of the towels, and headed back to the female portion of the ship. Things were friendly between the two gender segments of the crew, but the segregation allowed a smoother, less forced co-mingling to occur. The Ship was still at the overhaul facility, and the enlargement was almost done. The center section and engine compartment had been removed, a bigger, ring shape had been built around it, with eight thick spokes connecting the middle it to the middle section. The wings, head, and base had grafted onto the ring, creating the required storage and crew spaces. They had all stayed aboard the station while they let the Paexis engulf the ship in crystal and made whatever changes it saw fit. That had lasted the last two weeks, and now as the crystal growth receded, they were moving back into the ship. The Spec. Ops team had been aboard for about three standard days now, and training for 14 hours of the day, each day. Casey had been surprised about how easily she got along with Meia in particular. They had been working together almost exclusively, and they were very close. She pondered occasionally on why it was always so surprising to discover you idols were human, and even more so to find out you like that person.

"Damn," Casey said, wincing as she dabbed some blood away from her nose with the towel, "I think you broke my nose"

"Bah!" Meia puffed, scrubbing her hair dry with the towel, "you shouldn't complain, I think two of my ribs have an indent that conforms to the shape of your knee. Chow or infirmary first?"

"In the few weeks you've known me, have I ever chosen health over chow? 'Sides, I think Duello just likes to poke me." Casey added flatly.

Mabye," Meia conceded, "I know he certainly likes having enough crew n board to where he has a full time job." They reached their quarters, passed the message on to Barnette and Eva, and then changed quickly. They then hurried off to grab a bite, so they could hit the doctor before they had to report to the range.

**Launch Day.**

_Damn it, I really think Meia broke my nose. After we grabbed the chow, the Doc splinted it, but it still hurts like hell. Oh well, he had to bandage her ribs, so at least I got her as good, if not better. Heh, bitch. Anyway, it is a big day. The Paexis has receded, and the new Nirvana is more glorious than I could have ever Imagine. I have also begun to print hard copies of all my diary entries. I figure, we have no way to know HOW this whole time screw up has happened, but if we actually are back in time, and not some alternate dimension, I figure if I lock the hard copies in my personal footlocker, that maybe the Colonel will get them when the team locates it in the wreck. Anyway, got to go now, and strap down for boost. The Captain and first officer are making their speeches, and then we are go._

…

_ Alright, after several weeks, we are under way. The craziest aspect of this, is that there is false gravity aboard the ship, but the necessary tech will not be developed or generating the gravity field will not be developed for another 2 centuries. I believe that the power source of the ship, the Paexis Progma, is doing it, or rather, talk around engineering leads in that direction. I must get some readings on this marvelous creature. Oh, anyway, in the Capitan's remarks, she told us about the absence of any reported Harvest sightings/attacks since their defeat on our doorstep. So, we are going to comb the Great Prosser Ship Graveyard for intact Harvest tech that could lead to working units. The GPSG was created in the wake of the battle, with the enormous amount of debris being created, and creating a near impassable navigation hazard. So a coalition of ships jury-rigged miles and miles wide nets woven of steel and combed the area, creating a giant cloud of dead metal, now known as the GPSG, the name taken in honor of the man who developed the idea, Admiral Jonas Prosser. Like the Admiral Jonas Prosser who has a memorial on Mejale in our time for his selfless sacrifice of ramming a Harvest ship to protect a civilian ship a year forward of Here-Now. __**Note: need to develop a time tense when discussing this.**__ Anyway, just a little bit I thought was cool. Besides, now know we will encounter Harvest eventually, as we were not all harvested and this attack shall occur a year from now. Oh, crap, there's is the indicator, gotta run!_

The boost pack exhaust left a small trail of pale propellant particles as it pushed Casey steadily toward the dead Dropship type. The thing was skewered on a Van-type lance with the robotic suits detached arm still grasping the weapon as it lazily amidst the junk. Using the left hand control joystick, she move forward, then, tilting the right hand stick back toward her, angled up and cruised with her feet inches above the silver hull. This was the 14th derelict Harvest she would search. She had already been at it for 5 hours, working with the Support Ship piloted by Gascogne who was backed up Jura and Velour in their Dreads in case of trouble. Together with Meia, Barnette, Eva, Ethan, and Misty, they had searched a total of 67 separate intact ships in their coverage areas, all to no result. She spotted a swath of open space sliced into the hull below her to the left, slowed, twisted on her axis, and glided inside the giant balloon shaped construct. She shook her head like she was trying to pop her neck, and the two shoulder mounted spot lights flared into existence, throwing twin circles of light on the interior. She spun the control yokes until she flipped over, clicked her heels to activate the magnets located on the soles of her boots, and attached to the hull, the arms of her boost pack slipping back and out of the way. She looked slowly around the inside of the craft, and was surprised as the two blocks of 24 Cube types were still inside. She noted in her personal recording that they were anchored to the walls of the craft via large clamps that hooked on to the corners of the larger block formation, with what appeared to be a spring based launching mechanism mounted in the back portion of the ship that she theorized was used to propel the cubes into the fray. She jumped slightly as she caught moment in the still environment, and it took her a few seconds to relocate the object. It was a male body in a flight suit consistent to that used by the Tarak Navy. After the five hours she had already spent amongst the wreaks, she was no longer disgusted by the myriad of bodies looked within the graveyard, even when presented in unrecognizable chunks.

"_How did you get in here?"_ She thought to herself, as she pushed the corpse away, sending it twisting away into the dark. A quick 360 degree scan of he interior revealed no other openings other than the scar she had flown in, and it was highly unlikely a stray body would have been able to drift into it. As her light passed over the cubes again, she finally noticed something. The cubes bore the red coloration of the Harvest Fleet that had attacked the system, but not as their main tint. Getting closer, she noticed that the main color they bore was white, the highlights being red, with a large cross patter across the top of each unit. She hadn't seen any other units like this, and that got her heart pumping, thinking she might have found something. In the back of her head, the presence of the corpse still bothered her, and somewhere, that was what linked it in her mind. The red and white pattern was _very_ similar to that used to designate medical personnel and equipment for humans. Her Heart beat faster, and figured in her head the direction the body had drifted at her from, and moved in that direction. That is when, following the ships curve along the roof of the ship, she found a wall that only continued fro the bottom ¾ of the way across the space, whick that launch mechanism was attached to, and was thicker than the outer walls. Continuing inward, she passed into this smaller space, and Gasped in horror at what she found waiting. Across each wall were four human escape pods, all plugged into a power generator that appeared to still be functioning. She moved as quickly as she could, and ass she now expected, found on of the vessels cracked, the occupant missing, presumably the man floating in the forward section. A quick check showed only one pod contained a life sign, and Casey bit down twice, activating her throat mic and radio directly to Gasco.

"Chambers to supply, over." Her brief military and new special Operations training took covered her radio procedure.

"Yeah," Gasco's calm drawl rumbled into her ear plug, "what do you need?"

"I have one human in an escape pod, low life signs." While she spoke, she pulled a beacon from her belt, thumbed the activation switch, and chucked it into the main chamber, bouncing from wall to wall, with now air friction to slow its momentum. "Home in on beacon number 14. There is no serviceable entrance, so have a cutting crew ready, along with a power conduit…" she inspected the hookup on the pod, "with an S type jack on it. Recommend cutting through the roof of the ship for best access." Gascogne like the concise sit rep and the details on what might be needed, and gave the necessary orders to her girls, and almost missed Casey's last remark.

"Looks like the bastards were havesting _our_ escape pods even during the fighting." The disgust was palpable in her voice, and Gascogne shook her head in silent sadness.


	6. The Visitation

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

**Alright, I'm not really shure, but I think I may have Smurfed up, written chapter 5, forgot to post it, then went ahead and saved over it for chapter six. So, if there is a continuity error, (The kind like, "Holy S*** why the hell di this thing jump the rails," rather than the usual "forgot what I was talking about earlier" kind of problem" betwixt the posted 4****th**** and 5****th**** chapter, (I'm thinking a Meia Speech was involved,) let me know so I can make up some filler material. Thanks, all.**

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#7: The Visitation**

Casey was the last aboard the supply ship with the pod, as she was the first on the scene, claimed as a doctor, she needed to be present to oversee the transference of the life support system. After that, it was just a short trip to the Nirvana, and long trip though the ship and hoards of onlookers cramming in to see the pod to the medical bay. Once there, and all non essential had been removed, minus herself and Eva, of course, it left just them, Duerro, and Piaway with the cylindrical object. It was concurrent with the design of a Tarakian Capital class ship escape pod of the time that the Two Planets Battle took place, and was complete with the Cryogenic freezing unit used to keep survivors alive in case of less than imminent rescue. Duerro was already starting the defrosting with the help of Paiway, and it was clear that Casey was welcome, but not needed. Being so, she sat on one of the hospital beds and began working on her report with Evie behind a curtain. She was startled when she felt a tap on her shoulder, and found Paiway standing by her side.

"The Defrost is almost complete, and we are preping the revitalization process. Duerro said that you would like to be awake for it." She turned and left, and after consulting her wrist terminal, she realized she had been asleep for the better part of 6 hours. Eva greeted her with a smile and a steaming cup of fresh coffee as she left the partition, leaving Evie open on the bed, pretending to be a micro comp, and watching all that took place.

There was a his of escaping gas, and a cold draft washed around the ankles of the four present as the lead cracked free of it's gastight seal, and refrigerant clouds flowed from the crack. Donning the sterile white gloves of her trade, Casey helped the Doctor pry the lid up and off the pod, its single roof mounted hinge giving no assistance. As the final mist of gas dissipated in the warm med-bay, it revealed a middle-aged man dressed in a gray flight suit laying in the pod. Duerro and Casey moved quickly, yet carefully, attaching the leads of a heart moniter and the IV lines necessary to flush the drugs that aided the freezing out of the mans system. It took a full fifteen minutes for the mans heart rate to pick up, and another 20 for it to resume normal pattern. Shortly after, the body began to warm, and the eyelids startrd to flutter.

_The man I discovered sleeping in the pod was, sadly, completely unremarkable. Brown hair, average build, even an average name: Markus Viddiles. Says he was a engineering officer on a Tarak warship during the battle, and some shoddy records from back then confirmed that a man of that name served on the destroyed frigate Shogun, and he was listed as "not recovered." He's taken the shock of waking up 3 years later after almost being harvested and finding himself on a ship full of women very well. The only notable feature he possesses is his unceasing curiosity of everything. His eyes, they move slowly, and take everything in, as if he were looking at it for the first time, every time. He speaks slowly, and rarely has anything interesting to say, and that is when he is not outright boring. But, while we were waking him, Parfait and her people combed the ship. After each bot was scrapped and the computer parts examined, they found all were wiped. However, when she took apart the Dropships drives she discovered a string of numbers punctuated with periods. It didn't take her more than a minute for Parfait to recognize it a star chart co-ordinate. She linked up with Bart, and with his help tracked it to a star system outside of explored space. We blasted in that direction, and Parfait is talking about working with Pyoro and trying to find a way to boost the Paexis output into faster travel. Don't know, but it's time for dinner, later._

_ Holy S***! Holy S***! Holy S***! We are about three weeks out from the co-ordinates, and Holy S***! They are gonna let me in one of the FLYING THINGS! Holy F***ing S***! Whew!... Sorry, I am so very excited! I can't even remember what they are called… er AH! Dreads! I GET TO FLY A DREAD!_

Meia led the extremely agitated girl down the hall and into the elevator. Casey was visibly quivering as the doors closed and the car moved down to the toward the hanger bay.

"Are you _sure_ that you are ok?" Me asked, and Casey looked surprised the Meia was there.

"Huh?" Was her brilliant retort.

"Are you sick or something?" Meia looked concerned, causing Casey to blink, managing to look stupid, which she felt wasn't easy.

"What? Uh, no, sorry, I am just a little excited."

"Oh, really?" Casey was so lost in her own head that she failed to the knowing smile or the sarcasm in her voice.

"Yeah… I mean, I've dreamed of this since I started rese…" She caught herself, but luckly, she was already staring off into space. "Since I saw the transmission of the battle over the planet." Meia rolled her eyes, and the elevator coasted to a stop with a small sigh, and she stepped into the new docking bay. When the Paexis had consumed the ship, it rearranged things to suit itself. Well, the docking area suited Meia as well.

The Dreads were anchored in four column attached to floor to ceiling belts held on with special magnetic clamps. There actually were a total of five launch bays now. The main, located in the center of the main drive core, and four secondary bays arrayed in an "X" around it, so that all exits couldn't be disabled with one shot. In a battle situation, the Dreads were loaded from the flight lounge rather than the bay itself, which allowed a quick deployment. Once loaded and crewed, the ships moved along the belt and into one of the two to four launch tubes located in each bay. When ready, the bays would fire out Dread's exactly like a belt fed automatic weapon. This method was capable of launching the entire force of 200 dreads in 3 minutes. But as there were only 100 trained pilots, in addition to 42 soon to bee in training girls, left 58 spares that could be exchanged in case of serious damage.

The training wasn't going to start until after they looked at the star point, and they saw if there was anything. But, Meia liked Casey, and either way, she was the overall leader of Dread squadrons, and could pretty much do whatever she felt like. She was in the middle of he bay by then and was pleased to see one of the belts cycle up her specialized Dread, and the two tiered auto stairs glide up and settle up to her ship. It was that moment that Meia realized that Casey was not with her. She turned and saw she was still in the elevator staring at… nothing.

"Oy!" Meia shouted her voice echoing in the cavernous space as she set her hands on her hips. Casey snapped back to reality and looked around. "Are you coming, or should I just go back to bed?

"OH! Sorry!" She replied and moved briskly across the floor to where Meia had paused.

"Alright, then." Meia said, letting her arms drop to her sides and continued walking to the auto-steps. She turned as hit the base, and leaned in a carefully planned bored looking stance. "Shall we?"

"YES!" Casey said breathlessly with a face that seemed like she was about to pee her panties. Meia gestured for her mount the stairs up to the first tier where a "blank," or unassigned dread sat anchored to the belt. Without the armaments provided for a combat op, the ship was little more than the cockpit, to engines, and a single, middle mounted forward facing energy cannon. The hull was a dull, pearl white, and bore none of the decorations of the piloted ones. Casey stood on the deck of the stairs, eyes wide in awe and hands clasped at her throat as she glanced longingly at the sleek craft. Meia crossed the deck, and sat on the side of the ship, just forward of the port hinge that held the canopy aloft. She waited, but Casey made no move to approach closer.

"So… do I have show how to mount the seat too?" Casey shook her and climbed reverently into the cockpit. "You know, if your this buggy, it's probably not a good idea to take you out…" Meia was facing away to hide the smile that played across her face. To her eye, it seemed to her that Casey was keeping her head from exploding through a display of pure willpower. After she managed to calm down a bit, and her face faded from red to pink, she spoke confidently.

"No, Ma'am, I'm solid and focused."

"Good!" Meia said, clapping her gloved hands and spinning up on her heel. "Ok, I'm going to give you a quick run through of the systems, maneuvering, and the comms." Casey nodded, and the next 45 minutes were spent going over every thing that could be gone over in the bay until Casey could recite any of it back to her.

"Alright, I think we are good. Seal her up." She said, and stepped back, and watched Casey release the hinges and allowed canopy to drop. Once it sealed, the hexagonal HUD flashed into place, wrapping her in a hemispherical web of displays. Fuel gauge, weapon count and selection, bearing, heading, speed, anything she could need to know was displayed comfortably upon her screens. Meia saw she was good, mounted the second tier stairway, and jumped into her own, pointy and sleek vessel, racked above Casey, and slapped the canopy release plate. It descended and clicked into place, and her own web of readouts glowed to life. She thumbed a display, and the belt started cycling downward into the firing tubes. It cycled so that Meia's Dread was loaded first, so she would be out before Casey. The view darkened as she entered the tube, and the lights glowed brighter to compensate. There was a inaudible click that felt like a vibration through the hull as the anchors switched to the launch rails. There was a shudder as the rails charged, and a strong jerk as the rails advanced the anchors, and finally the all over release as the ship was thrown out of the tube and into the vacuum and stars dotted themselves across the un burdened portion of her display. She let the inertia carry her a few kilometers away from the Nirvana, then used her thrusters to slow her ship. When the ship arrived at dead speed relative to the Nirvana's, she hit the button to launch Casey's Dread.

There was vibration in the hull that Casey barely felt over her racing pulse. This was followed by a jerk that pressed her back heavily into her seat as the Dread was thrown into space. She was momentarily surprised as the gravity disappeared, and just like Meia said, she waited until her range gauge told her she had reached 4 kilometers, and then hit the button that allowed the computer to work the thrusters and place her dead relative to Meia's Dread. Once they were at the same distance, Meia began working through some basic drills and maneuvers. After a few hours of this, Casey was flying as natural as if she had been doing it for months. As the time neared to return inside the ship, Casey began to get cocky, and Meia managed to temper it with uncommonly good humor.

"Come on, set up a course with markers, and see if I can beat you through, a good old fashioned race." Meia had cut the feed so it was Audio only, so Casey couldn't see the predatory smile on her face as she replied.

"Fine, if it will shut you up, give me a minute to set it up." Casey did a series of sideways, circular rolls around Meia's cruising craft, sinking in close enough brush the barriers, and then backing off in wider loops while Meia worked a course for the markers to array themselves. The final product was a course that wove in and out of the wings and top of the main ship, and even knifed through the narrow, hollow center of the ring portion, before curving gently 180 degrees and ending in the docking area. She swiped across the selection pad, and the markers missiles popped and raced toward there position, a strobbed beacon indicating the start point. Casey spun her craft in a forward flip, gunned her thrusters to kill her sway, and throttled in the direction of the start beacon while Meia swung in a lazy arc. She had, of course, never mentioned to Casey that her Dread had the best acceleration and top speed of any of the fleet. She worked her panel, and set the limiter to only allow half output from her engines. They breaked into position, and waited for the markers to finish moving into position. Meia dialed up a timer, and transmitted it on the ship to ship frequency that counted down form ten. The number hit, and Casey was thrown into her seat as she pushed the acceleration stripe all the way into the red. Meia worked her pedal style accelerator and the engine stopped pushing and leveled out at a speed just under Casey's. They weaved and slid along the larger ships hull, occasionally brushing the energy screens. As Meia followed Casey through the center of the ship, she corkscrewed, removed the limiter, and opened the throttle to full. She spiraled over Casey, scaring the hell out of her, before rocketing of, pulling a tight, almost square cornered turn, and jetting back toward the bay, followed now by the beaten girl.

_Sorry, I know it has been awhile, but to much has been going on for me update, and I only have down time now because I'm in the med tent. No, you read that right, med TENT. Maybe I should catch you up._

_ So we hit the coordinates we found in the dropship, and at first it just seemed to be an unremarkable human settlement on a uncharted world. No presence of one of the colony class ships like the Ikazuci anywhere like is common on the human worlds in our arm of the galaxy. After a thorough scan, it seems that a single city is all that is on this planet. The city is circular in build, with only a radius of 2 miles in any direction housing any sizable population. What we learned after our party landed, however, was that the entire radial city stretched another 5 miles out, but was a maze of derelict and dilapidated skyscrapers, factories, and sprawling housing districts. The whole city had been inhabited until two years prior, when the robots had descended from the heavens and landed they monstrous machines and began taking the people. Those who remained after the weekly attacks had continually moved inward until the city had been condensed to it current size. Seeing as it is our goal to wipe out the Harvest, we offered our assistance to wiping out this infestation._

_ In short, we landed troops, and would hold the line, push 'em back, and wipe 'em out. TheHarvest forces were out in the great plains surround the city, and buried under the soil, where their pillage was collected and stored until a Capital ship could make pickup, every 3 to 6 months while deliving new suplies. According to the natives, this was due to happen within the next few weeks. Well, as we found out, this plan wasn't easy._

_ First off, the damned bots were pocketed in the ruins of the outer city, and were in sufficient strength to make any groups traveling need fairly large numbers. Then, the damned things would grease anything stronger than a personal radio as soon as it started transmitting. This caused the need for a couple of Dreads to fly around in constant shifts just to piggy back comms, and more than once we lost a ship to anti aircraft fire. Now, I wondered why, at first, we didn't just have Bart sterilize the ruins from orbit with the Nirvana's weapon systems. According to Parfait, the eergy beams fired wouldn't dissipate in the atmosphere because they are not held coherent by magnetism, but rather are seemingly a physical manifestation of the Paexis energy in the most efficient shape. But, the reason against orbital bombardment was because there are pockets of survivors living all over the area. The hell of it is, this has been determined to be a tactic of the enemy, as the clusters of survivors are not random, but corralled in a pattern that leaves no way not to decimate them when trying to level any portion of the ruins. I'll give the bastards one thing, they know how to hinder us._

_So, long story short, we are down here, fighting a holding action, while the Nirvana is tucked in behind the moon, on a low emission setting waiting for the ship to show. Now, with the crappy accommodations, constant death threat, and little air cover, the bitch is, I think they are building more of themselves. We've seen two basic types of enemies since we've landed, Beetle types, and Bi types._

_ The Beetles function as tanks and transports, roughly like a Personnel carrier. It mounts 2 weapons, a forward facing suppressing ray, which works kind of like a point stunner, for knocking out biologicals. In the shoulder region, forward of the wings, are dual repulser cannons. These fired waves of hyper compact energy that work perfectly to blast apart stone, dent metal, and, in at least one case, liquefy humans. Also, underneath the Cyclops head were a half dozen large, heavy duty syringes to harvest biomaterial._

_ Those have been encountered on other occasions by other forces, according to the records on the Nirvana. But, the Bi types are the real problem. One of the reasons the human race has spread and prospered, is because of our shape. Well, it to whoever made this things a while to figure that out, but they learned, and they were putting it to good use. Essentially, the Bi types are metal human skeletons, with built in weapons. Blades, energy projectors, explosives, slug throwers, flame throwers, hell, we even saw a rock thrower. The real disturbing point is that we've seen them adding parts to themselves. A camera feed from a soldier KIA Veret Singer shows one getting it's offense arm blown off, and pick up another and wiring itself to it, then killing the man. Plus, they have been using outside machinery to jury-rig new stuff to themselves. It's not going well… Damn, nurse is her with the sedative, and I haven't even managed to tell you how I got nailed. Ok, next time, out!_

**End chapter 7**


	7. Cover Me

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

**Because F it, that's why.-**_**Note to any questions that may arise in veiw of recent direction.**_** Yes, they are like Terminators, minus skin. I have always enjoyed the one scene that had the giant red Beetle type. I **_**DO**_** love the phrase "Freely interpreted," thank you for asking.**

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#8: Cover Me**

"A Monument to all your sins." The letters etched in the silver, telescoping tube Casey had resting against her shoulder, end supported by a bipod, gleamed in the reddish afternoon sun. The words weren't hers, and she couldn't remember where she had heard them, but she liked it none the less, especially as no one else understood them any more than she. She was laying on her stomach in the second floor of a boomed out building that seemed to have been a house, peering through the side mounted scope of her rifle. Because of the diameter of the rifle, the side mount mad more sense than a standard top mount, and allowed her to wait more comfortably. She, Barnette, Eva, Ethan, Jack, John, and Vinn, were stirring up trouble about a half mile out on the north side of the city, while other teams were doing the same to the West and East. The idea was to do enough damage that it would draw in forces from the south, so another team could lead a large group of survivors up from there into the city proper with the Dreads lead by Jura providing cover for the ground troops. Casey was mildly surprised, the history she had researched had Jura playing a much more limited role in the command of the Dread squadrons, but she seemed to have really stepped up. Here radio clicked in her ear three times, and she sent a two click counter acknowledgment back. Time to get started.

Gunfire echoed out of a few places, and the response was immediate as six of the Bi types rose from the shadows and opened fire, 5 with slug throwers, and one with a cobbled together rock thrower. The blurred shapes of her squad mates dashed back and forth, dodging and spraying fire as Casey selected a target, thumbed the fire selector switch to "small target."

"Wait for my go…" Barnette said. She was positioned in a different building then Casey, and was also providing sniper cover for the ground team. Barnette was a far superior riflewoman, so she got to call the shots. She kept sight on the bot that looked the newest, and waited with her crosshairs on the robots head. Just when she began to wonder what the hell Barnette was doing, when her voice came over her headset.

"S**t, alright, take 'em." Casey heard the flat, ringing retort of Barnette's rifle, exhaled, and squeezed her own trigger. The robot jerked it's single eyed head at the sound of her gun, throwing her aim off slightly, so that the slug hit it in the shoulder and spun it around. A second shot took the grounded enemies head off. Unlike Barnette, who was using a rifle firing standard slugs, Casey was using a prototype weapon system in place of a standard rifle. The long, pentagonal telescoping tube Casey fired was state of the art and fantastically expensive. For the cost of one o these new rifles, you could build 4 Dreads or 6 Vanguards, from scratch, including labor and shipping. She was field testing it at the behest of the company that manufactured it in hopes of securing a contract if the weapon was effective, which the company guaranteed it was. Essentially, from what parts Casey could decide were true in the manual, the inside of the rifle, when elongated, was a high powered compression chamber. It took a highly corrosive gas, and pressurized it down to the point where it was a near solid mass. After this was compressed onto a pill capsule sized projectile, a thin, tough skin was, and the manual did not state how, formed around this super compact gas before being fired at high speed. On contact with a hard surface, the shell ruptured, propelling the deadly corrosive explosively outward. As Casey examined the decapitated Bi type through her scope, she noted that it was correct, as the metal was dissolving from the shoulder and neck of the dead bot. It was reloaded via canisters of the gas, each good for 10 small shots, or 2 large shots. A large crunching sound echoed across, followed by the sound exploding stone, and swearing over the radio.

"Ah, hell, Beetle type inbound… OH S**T!" There was another explosion followed the cutoff of the transmission.

"Damn it, you have rockets! Fire the rockets! That is why you have them! No, stop looking at me, SHOOT. THE. ROCKETS!" Jack was yelling at someone, but Casey ignored the chatter as the bright red Beetle ambled into the alley in front of her. Apparently whoever Jack was yelling at got their act together, and a trail of exhaust connected with the left side of the carrier. The explosion that followed threw the beast sideways into the building in front of her own, and shook the foundation. The bot rose on its six legs, shook the dust off, and spread its short wings. From underneath the wings, six Bi types climbed up, and dropped of the sides. Casey, ignoring that, thumbed the selector switch to large shot, and aimed at the accordion style joint between the torso and head. She waited, and just like she thought, a second rocked sailed in and hit the already dented side and crumpled it further, killing the 3 Bi types that had dismounted from that side. The Beetles shoulder repulsers glowed to life, and as it began to turn toward the rocketeer, she squeezed the trigger. The force of the shot leaving the barrel pressed the barrel all the way back to its shut state. The round, about the size of a ping-pong ball, roared out, hit the joint, and exploded. The bottom of the joint ripped free, and the corrosive liquid sprayed over the head and torso, dissolving the armor and decapitating the robot. The body slumped and rolled over as another wave of Bi types moved in. Casey, having three shots left in her gas rifle, so she timed here shots well, and took down three of the advancing bots. After the third dell to a center of the head shot, the remainder turned, and began to move at her.

"Well, Chambers, looks like our shiny friends have taken a liking to you. Vinn, John, use the Grenade Launchers, and see if you can…" The transmission broke into static and the air seemed to rip as a thick white streak tore through the area parallel to the street, 8 feet high. The static faded as the… whatever it was passed, and Jack was confused. "What the hell was…" There was a thunderclap, and the ground shook in great spasms. There was a whooshing noise, like air getting pumped into a balloon, followed by a enormous explosion and a quake so violent it made the previous shaking seem like a slight vibration. A minute later, a rain of pulverized stone and soil fell, darkening the sky. Casey was under an overhang of what was left of the floor above her, so she didn't have to seek shelter. The wake of the passing object has shattered all of the robots she could see had been shattered by the overpressure and shockwaves. That is when a new enemy appeared.

It looked like a larger, dark red Beetle type. It was as big as 4 normal Beetle, two stacked by two forward. The first noticeable difference was that there was a large several meter long tube running along the dorsal spine of the machine. There was little question as to what it was, as three flat slats sprang outward near the base of the tube, where it was mounted to the back of the beast, and a monstrous shell casing slid to the ground. The casing was basically the size of a five gallon bucket, but was a meter tall. It's six thick legs were jointed multiple places, and suspended armor sat around each joint. One of the remaining rockets the team had was fired, and the suspended plates swished over the joints, protecting them. When the smoke cleared the armor retracted, and it turned swiftly toward the area the rocket originated from. In the forward shoulder area, two plates shifted, and single belt-fed heavy cannon emerged on each shoulder, then the plates snapped back in at the cannons bases. The Cannons rotated, focused on the same point, and began to chug out projectiles the size of twenty ounce soda cans at a rate of about 1 a second. Concrete splintered, metal shattered, and walls crumbled under the stream of projectiles and the man who fired the rocket ran for cover.

Faced with this new, rocket resistant enemy, Jack figured he ad to call in the bug guns. He bit down, switching radio frequencies, as his cloak fluttered in the wing generated as the assaulted building collapsed in a cloud of dust.

"Bounder 1 to Eye In The Sky, over."

"This is Eye, I already told you, we don't do food deliveries, Bounder 1, over.

"It's cool, Eye, we got what looks like a Beetle Tank or something messing up our street, and I was wondering if you had a spare can of Raid we could borrow?, over."

"On the way, Eye out." Velour was covering the western sectors retreat into the city, and they had just finished the maneuver, and the gates were just sliding shut. She banked hard, pushed up her accelerator stripe to half power, and headed toward the group of dots her FOF tracker labeled as Bounder team. A minute later she came into range, throttled down to minimum, and began shedding altitude. When she was about thirt feet above the highest rooftops, she leveled out and activated her targeting systems. There were several small dots, representing Bi-types in the surroundings, along with around 6 of the larger Beetle-types. Then right in the middle of the 7 blue dots, was a giant red blob with an unknown classification, that she guessed had to be her target.

"Heads down, Bounder team," she said after switching to a freq. all the troops in the team would receive, "Two heat seekers coming in hot." She thumbed the button on her right hand flight yoke, and the Dread shuddered as two missiles launched into the air and chased after the target.

Casey, still prone in her safe position, watches as the two missiles flew in at the Heavy Beetle. When it detected the threat, an area on either side of the long cannon, a long slip of armor raised and slide out of the way, and eight smaller tubes moved up slightly in a graduated stepping order. The tubes whoofed aswhat Casey guessed were mortar tubes lanched flares into the air, and the missiles chased them up the street and into a building.

"Uh, sorry, Eye, but looks like the bastard has flares, no hit, over." Jack radioed, and Velour took her dread into another tight turn.

"Alright, then, lets see if he can block some non trackers." She was talking to herself, miffed that the tank would make her was her missiles, as she still had four hours left before relief, and that was her heaviest ordinance. As ah came within half a klick she hit the realese, and four pods dropped free, popped, and the eight missiles flew in a downward arc at the tanks. Casey watched as the tank lowered itself to the ground, sealed the mortars and cannons, and locked its joint armor down. The missiles struck two at a time burring the Beetle under fire and smoke. When the smoke cleared the Beetle had alread unclamped, and had turned its face, with its five yellow eyes arrayed like the five face of a die, toward the aircraft, and its main cannon was twiching up and down ranging the target. Casey bit her mic.

"Eye, evasive now, incoming shell!" a second later, the cannon roared, blowing the entire back section of the Beetles body backward, car sized springs absorbing the recoil, ands blowing dust in every direction. Velour hit her emergency thrusters and did a wig over to the right, narrowly getting missed from a direct hit, but loosing her right wing and get throw off to the side. She managed to bring it into a near stable flight, and made for the inner city.

"Sooty, Bounder, but I am out of this one, not going to be able to keep her up, I'll try and get another fight on the horn." Jack Shook his head, and then spoke over the radio.

"Negative, Eye. Strike had zero effect, we'll figure out something. I'm just glad these bastards don't have air burst rounds. Safe landing."

"Heh, more like safe crashing, see you when you get back. Eye out." Jack switched freqs. again. "Alright, team, any ideas on how to bring this big boy down?" Casey had already swapped gas canisters while the conversation with Eye was taking place, and she was now sweeping the tank looking for a good place to shoot. After a few seconds, and no obvious weakness, she settled for the accuator connecting the forward leg to the body, thumbed the switch back to large, and fired.

The motion and aural detective systems on the tank registered the shoot, point of origin, and threat level in a fraction of a second, and the armor around the joint locked in in time to deflect the blow. The corrosive liquid splattered on the armor, searing, but not melting the heavy alloy. The force of the shoot had served to dent the plating, and the tank registered the fact when the plates had trouble sliding back apart. Not pleased with this, the Beetle ordered its slug cannons to ascend, and targeted the building the shot had come from. It took a 3 seconds to deploy as it turned, loosed the safeties, and began pumping out projectiles.

By the time the shooting started, Casey had already rolled over the gun, which folded up into its smallest form, about a foot and a half long, and clipped it on her back. She had just managed a low crouch when the concrete began to come apart around her. She dashed, still keeping low, the large slugs ripping everything around her to shreds, and peppering her with small, sharp bits. She contained to move toward the rear of the building, hoping to get farther away from the souse of the frightful fire. She knew she was about run into the furthest wall from her survey of the building from earlier in the day. A slug burrowed its way through the floor, created a ridge under her foot, and she fell face first to the floor, sliding a few feet on the surface of her body armor. She looked up, saw a window, did a push-up, and dashed full on, sprung and jumped into space. The wall of the neighboring building came up fast, she hit, and somehow managed a kind of slide down the wall, until she passed a window and slipped inside, landing hard on hr back, head and shoulders hanging in space and almost pulling her back out. She managed to check her fall, carefully rose, and made for the stairs. The Beetle, not happy with this turn of events, unsheltered its mortar tubes, and launched 2 barrages of 16 rounds each. Casey heard the characteristic whine of the falling explosives, but it didn't register as she hit the door to the fire stairs, and the roof started to explode. The building bucked and shuddered, throwing her to the ground away from the stairwell. She stared at the ceiling as it bloomed into a cracked mosaic, and began to fall. She rolled, a large chuck of stone landing where her head had been, and continued until she hit a wall. The building jumped as the explosives continued to wreak the top floors and steel supports snapped. The bombs were still falling when the third floor down, with its weakened supports couldn't hold up, and crashed down, smashing the floor below it, and sending down more rubble. The door to the fire stairs had fallen of, and Casey watched as an avalanche of debris flowed down. The whole structure groaned, she heard some more snapping supports, and the floor started to sag. She screamed as the floor dropped from under her, slid backward down the steep floor, and fell four feet to the floor bellow. Battered and bruised, she managed to roll onto her back and look up, just as the ceiling let loose a final moan, and collapsed over her. She felt a sharp pain everywhere, and was gone swiftly into the dark.


	8. Dark Days

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

**Ok, like Terminators if they were made by the "I Robot" Movie people. Think shiny and white armor.**

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#9: Dark Days**

Jack Swore when her saw the tank turn, swore harder when the scream came through the radio, and swore even harder when the building under fire came down. Eventually he ran out of words and switched idioms and bit to the squad freq.

"Ah, bollocks. Alright, anyone ELSE got any brilliant ideas?" He asked. Eva appeared at his elbow, speaking off the radio.

"I do, sir." He hadn't seen her approach, and jumped at the sound of her voice, biting shut his mic at the same time. He had potentially just lost a team member, but had five others to look out for, and believed that if kept calm, the others would focus.

"Oy! How many times do I have to tell you not to sneak up on me like that." He said when he turned to look. He wasn't a tall guy, but he still had to look down a bit to meet her eyes. She was small, and extremely pretty, almost ornamentally so. He wanted to like her, but she was so blasted serious all of the time. She had just under zero sense of humor, and showed no signs of improving it. She simply stared at him with solemn, un amused eyes. "Alright, 4, give it to me." She efficiently outlined her plan in one sentence.

"Get me onto it, I'll use my hand computer and disable it." Jack stared incredulously at the dimunutive woman.

"Are you bonkers, or have you always been a nutter?" He didn't know where he'd picked up some of the phrasing, but it seemed to fit.

"No, sir. I am confedant that if I can get the computer linked with the tanks systems, I can stop it." He turned, waving a dismissive hand at her.

"Give me a minute to think." He watched the tank stomping around, occasionally probing empty buildings with its shoulder guns. He noticed the mortar tracks were still open. Exactly sixty seconds after he turned, Eva spoke again.

"Well, sir?" She said, quietly.

"You do that just to irritate me, don't you?" He said with a sigh.

"Sir, yes sir." She responded with such a serious tone he missed the answer.

"Alright, we'll do it, but I'm already down one of you egghead types, and I'm not about to lose another. I am expendable, you lot are not, so I'm going to deliver the package." He didn't wait for her to respond, and on the lat word bit down to the Squad Frequency. "Alright people, we have a plan. I want you all to gather rocks, no bigger than Bounder four's fist, and make 8 to 10 piles in various places. When I give the go, I want handfuls of the rocks hurled at the tank. Move between the piles and do NOT allow the wanker to get a fix. You have 6 minutes, move." He then turned back to Eva. "So, what do I need to do?

Eva had discussed the problem with Evie earlier, and Evie had given her the plan. Get her to a spot on the armor over a portion of its electronic nervous system, she would drill in, and take it off line somehow. Evie as smugly confident that her 600 year boost in technological sophistication would be more than a match for any defenses that the enormous robot could bring to bear. Eva quickly outlined the plan to Jack, including the fact the easiest access point would on the rear of the tanks head.

"You flip her open, and she'll display where you should attach her with a yellow box. She will stick, then hit the button the sprouts up to start the drill. When it is finished, whatever she can do will pop up, then wait till the prompt tells you to remove her. Then bolt. Don't leave her. I will kill you if you do." He blinked, but did not look surprised, having learned that women were strangely violent creatures.

"Sounds go, let do it, then." He bit back to Sqyad freq. "Alright, Ladies and Gentlemen, let's toss some rocks!"

The tank cast head around, and would have been wearing a look of mild puzzlement if it had a face capable of displaying it's thoughts. It was being assaulted by dozens upon dozens of small missiles, all consistent in size, speed, and estimated accuracy matching that of a thrown rock. They fell in sheets, serving to irritate its motion tracker and confuse its processor. They fired personal rockets, then when those failed, attempted two air strikes, and finally some unknown weapon, 78% probability of new type of heavy, single action rifle and biological compont. Now, when its threat projector predicted multiple air strikes, more personal rockets, or even massed single weapons fire, its quarry had switched to a weapon that did not even register on its threat index. The mass of incoming rocks made it impossible to project where the humans were, and it was getting many false readings. This treatment was still going on two minutes later. Now, one of the reasons Jack had decided on this plan, was that it was completely crazy, but he figured would work. He remembered how well a similar trick had worked on a training op when he was enlisted in the official Tarak military. The trick was drawing the enemies attention in several directions, then hitting the place you manuvered to be open. The tanks sensors, overwhelmed by the number of rocks, and also expecting the rocks to continue falling with the rest, didn't pick out the small difference in the smooth, round rock with a handle that rose instead of fell, bounced off it's cannon, and landed in it's mortar track. Three seconds later the grenade detonated on the exposed track, rocking the robot down, and finally doing some real damage. Jack hit the side of the bot with some throw away sticky grips, and in six seconds was mounted on the behemoths back. It hadn't recovered yet, and he dashed forward through the recessed walkway under the top gun. As he reached and mounted the hump of the shoulder ridge, he flipped open the calculator sized computer, and found the yellow box on the surface of the head, and quickly placed the computer where it was indicated, the pressed the box to start the drill. The tans systems registeded the heat profile on it's back, and felt the other entity latch onto it's nervous system. It fired off all it's data, including the diversion tactics back to it's base, then wiped all its data, but not before Evie had managed to snatch a bit. She looked over it's ordinance manifest, saw 12 Bi-types still in stock, and used her influence in the system to lock it's bay doors. She then surveyed the rest of it's systems, saw that the was she could damaged it from here was limited, and sent the single option to her screen. She was gratified when he pressed the accept key in a few seconds. She pushed the tanks power reactor into the red, disabled the safeties, and shutdown all access. She sent the text "remove computer, then exit vehicle in an expeditious manner," to her screen, then waited while he decoupled her.

Jack pocketed the robot, and dove as it continued smashing into things, trying to dislodge its unwanted passenger. He didn't know if there was any kind of reactor meltdown that didn't involve a large explosion, and possibly minor fallout that didn't really hurt anyone anyway, but he ordered the team back anyway as he ducked behind a wall and climbed a pile of rubble, working his way upwards in a broken building. The tank trashed violently, crashing into the buildings lining the street like it was trying to buck the now departed rider. Evie had made it so that the fusion reactor redlined and would melt the beast from the inside out. There were numerous safeties in place to prevent a catastrophe. All of the primaries failed, which left an emergency dump of the reaction agents. The tank activated the valve, which refused to open. In her breif foray into it's systems, Evie had not just locked the dump system, but deleted the programming necessary to force the shunt open. The heat continued to build until the pressure inside of the reactor popped the inner seal and the molten materiel trickled though the small opening. As the material made contact with non treated metal, it began to melt and widened the hole until the entire gasket melted off and the material drained, pooling on the bottom surface of the tanks belly, melting anything it came into contact with. As Jack watched, thin smoke trickled from all of the seams in its hull. After another minute, the hull under its cannon base began to glow red, and quickly shifted to a brighter orange. Jack got an idea, primed a grenade and lobbed it so it bounced under the tanks legs and detonated under the belly of the beast. Like he thought when the hull began to glow with heat, something had drained, and pooled at the lowest point within the machine and had begun to weaken the armor. The concussion of the grenades explosion warped the stressed metal rupturing it like a water balloon and spilling the molten liquid into the street in a great wave. Where the tanks feet pod were washed with the liquid, they too began to melt, making the robot sink into the steaming waste of its own innards. The more it tried to get away, the more surface made contact with the sticky liquid and it continued to slowly melt until its opened belly rested in the large puddle of white hot liquid. It shook its head in weak defiance at the splatter inside, caused by the grenade, ate through it's more delicate equipment and it's systems slowly shut down. As the connection from it's head to the body, it's shakings ceased and it's eyes dimmed out one by one, until the center one died with a shudder, and the mighty tank was dead.

Jack pulled out his silver handgun, and emptied the clip into it's head, the metal denting and warping the metal, softened as it was from the boiling lake underneath it. The third to last bullet cracked the dented sphere, spilling a few pits of electronics into the bubbling mire. He then spoke over the Team push.

"Alright, guys, regroup on me, but do not, I repeat do not get near that boiling stuff. Hell if I know what it is, but I give it 7 to 3 that it would make a Geiger counter dance like the burning Scarecrow." It took an extra bit of time for team to meet without descending to the street, but they still assembled in under three minutes, minus Bounder 6.

While they were moving in, he took a minute to establish contact with the next patrol Dread.

"Bounder 1 to Eye in the Sky, anyone up there, or did they finally figure out a way to replace you Harpies?"

"Damn, Bounder 1, we had a pool going on whether you'd pull out of that one, and I just lost a heap of money, over." Rebecca's confident voice gloated in his ear.

"Meh, you know me, Eye, I'm not allowed to die till Barnette decides she's done with me, so take it up with her. What's the status on our bird with the broken wing?"

"She's fine, and cursing her luck for eing stuck on the ground till Gasco can get pick out here, and sends her regards."

'That's Good to here, what about the little lost lambs, we good to come home yet, or should we kick the beehive some more?"

"What about lambs?" Jack loved to make archaic referances to the stuff he found while digging through the junk from the original flight of the Ikazuci's pre colonial mission, but resented the fact that no one understood them.

"The group from the south." He sighed.

"Oh, they just closed them into the city about half an hour ago, didn't Velour tell you?"

"No, only thing we got from her was a few hundred pounds of boom."

"Crap, sorry, the enemy has made a major push in all regions, and is currently assaulting the walls en masse. The East and West teams made it inside with the damned things nipping at their heels.

"What are you saying, Eye?" He had to ask, although he was fairly certain he knew, and began figuring a plan to deal with the envisioned situation.

"There is no way to get you back in the city, Bounder, they are lined up 20 deep all along the walls, and the teams are hard pressed keeping them from bring it down. But, if you find a place to hold down, I have the ok to give you a supply drop and your tasked priority one air support short of a massive breach.

"Glad there is some good news, me and the boys owe you one when we come home. Will hit you with the drop point when we make a hole, over and out." He bit of the feed and faced the newly assembled team. "Alright, team, looks like we are roughing it tonight. 3 and 7, you need to go out, find us a hole, and secure it as quietly as possible. No contact that can be avoided. I want one entrance, to escape routes, fortifiable for an extended stay, and at least a half mile from here. Once you got that, go to a different building, and radio in, I don't know if the blighters can pick up our personal radios, but I don't want to take any chances." Ethan nodded, and took off at a jog, and Vinn momentarily distracted, sprinted to catch up.

"Common Vinn, who ever doesn't I.D. the place has to dig the privies." Hunt called over his shoulder, borrowing from the squad leaders temporary idiom, which caused Vinn to swear and move faster.

"2 and 4, shadow the boys, draw their targets, and lead them away from where ever they find to stick us. You know the drill, just like we practiced no pattern to much, the catch on quickly. Also bingo any likely looking supply sights to help us in the fortification of our hidey hole. Shops, hardware stores, all the homey amenities. When they nab the secondary site, prep it for an air drop, and radio Rebecca and see what she needs from you. Barnette and Eva faded from sight and moved to close the gap between them and the boys.

"Alright then, 3, your with me. We're going to she if we can't dig our friend," he hooked his plated thumb over his shoulder to the rubble heap that had collapsed with Casey in it, "and see if we are going to help her of mourn her." He turned. He might lose teammates in this war, but he was damned if he was going to leave them, body or being, for those parasitic bastards to get. He hammered it into there heads, first thing each day, and last thing each night since he had signed on as squad leader: you may get hurt, killed, or captured, but they would not get left behind, and he had the means to prevent them from getting used by the harvest, but he had hoped never to need to.

It had taken a full hour and a half of sifting through the rubble to find her, and by some miracle of luck, she was still alive. She was pinned in a small space, covered by the heavy steel fire door, which hen the roof came down, shot off of it's hinges, and fell downward and got lodged about a foot above her, blocking most of the debris from continuing downward and crushing her. Well, most of her, anyway. Her right arm was pinned to the ground by two pieces of rebar, on in the forearm, and one in the upper arm. He was unable to tell if the metal had shattered bone or not.

Jack was glad she was lying on her back, as he could reach the part of her belt that gave her vitals readout without having to move her. Her vitals were surprisingly strong and calm, but still not within the healthy limits. He looked at the rebar and its connections within the debris until he saw where and how they were lodged, then stared carefully working the ruins free.

"Alright, John, get a couple of pressure bandages ready." He said when they had cleared most of the obstruction. "I'll pull, you hold, and then slap the bandages on before she can lose to much more blood." He was glad medical science continued to improve year after year, as the pressure bandages contained a self administering anti-infection agent, which saved them the task of needing to clean the wound, or re open it later. He stood, legs braced while John moved into position and gave the signal. Jack pulled up, and the bar eased out with a slight sucking noise, and no response from the inert girl. The second bar had become hooked with it's impact with the floor, and the had to lift her arm and slide it through all of the way. John got the bandages on quick, and then using some of the small, telescoping meal poles in his own first aid kit and some sticky tape, applied a temporary split for transport. John then hoisted her up, and the two moved to steadier grounds. They had just cleared the depth of the ruin when the radio flared to life.

"-nder 1, come in Bounder 1." Hunts voice was tight, an indication that he had been at it for a while.

"This is one, cool your jets, 7, and give me the rundown."

"Ok, we bingoed a building, bout a mile from you position. It's is free of the buggers and we are holding on a taller one a bit away."

"Ok, 7, wait for instruction, no contact." He changed the frequencies.

"ok, 2 and 4, you got them?" He heard a derisive snort.

"Roger that, the idiots don't even know we're here."

"Alright, link up with them, tell them what I wanted you to do, and then escort us to the building, we will be waiting at the site of the tanks death."

It took the girls only twenty minutes to rendezvous, and showed no surprise at the unconscious baggage that John was carrying. Eva took point, followed by John, then Jack, and finally Barnette walking drag. It took an additional 45 minutes for them to reach the building, which was located in the heart of a relitivly untouched area of the outer city, on the boarder of a corporate sector and a residential district. The place that Vinn and Hunt had chosen was the 14th floor, a large open room boarded by windows. John put Casey down in the middle of the space as Jack ordered the girls to go link up with the other two and finish preparations to receive the supply drop. It would be dark in about an hour, and he wanted to be hunkered down by then.

**End 9.**


	9. Dark Nights

Vandread: Mejalian Knights

**Been playing Alan Wake, and let me just say, Excellent. And now, so many months later, I await Duke Nukem next week, and here we are. Fun Fact: I just realised why Caseys full name seems familiar, (and face, I guess.) I landed on "Catherine Elizabeth Chambers," and could not figure out why it sounded so familiar, then, out of no where, it hit me. That's the name of Doctor Catherine Elizibeth Halsey, Founder of the Spartan Program in the Halo Universe, and in my humble opinion, possibly the 2****nd**** scariest person ever created (or to live, depending on your veiwpoint) only being beaten by "Her Wisdom Star" from **_**Glory Road**_**. I never noticed that before.**

Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.

**#10: Dark Nights**

The first thing Casey noticed when she regained some of her consciousness was that… well… everything hurt. Before opening her eyes, she mentally probed her body, examining what she could. The most pressing concern was the throbbing ache in her right arm. It was being brought repeatedly to her attention by a tugging sensation just outside of her awareness of the pain. It continued, winding slowly down her arm and building an nearly unbearable pressure from her shoulder down. Her eyes snapped open, then grew wide.

It was dark, but the unmistakable black cloaked visage of death was working its skeletal fingers, slowly removing her tattered arm flesh from her own gleaming bones. It turned it's glaring skull an grinned it's hellish grin. Casey screamed and jerked her arm out of it's cold grip, then her scream shot up in pitch as the agony from her injured appendage shot through her entire body, and a hand clasp over her mouth.

"Damn it, this is way I don't like working with fems," The specter said in a hissing whisper, "one little scratch and they try an rip the roof off with their whining." As Casey got more acquainted with her surroundings, she began to calm. First, the specter of Death lost its skull appearance and morphed back into the countenance of her squad leader. The next to come into focus was Eva, her hand clasp over Casey's mouth to quite her. Her eyes flashed both relief and concern.

"Eve, go out, make sure none of our friends was alerted by loudmouth here, and if they were, chase 'em off." Eva hesitated, causing Jack to snap at her. "NOW! Move, damn it!" She jumped up, unslung her rifle and vanished into flickering shadows as Jack shook his head bitterly. "Like I'm runing a %$#ing kindergarten. He pointed an accusing finger at Casey, all mirth gone from his voice. "You, what the hell, you and her," He jerked his thum toward the direction Eva vanished, "are the ones that are supposed to have some training, according to the REMF's. But there she goes, pausing at orders, and you go and get crushed under a bit of rock. I swear to God, if this were a Military outfit, I would bust you both, hopefully out before you got someone worth a damn killed. Now, give me back your arm before the bandage unravels." She did so, gingerly, and he continued, not saying anything, as Casey burned with shame inside. She didn't recall exactly what had happened, but knew Jack well enough to know he would not be this angry unless she messed up big time. He finished winding the dressing on, the sprayed the entire length of it with a aerosol that smelled like machining equipment, and then began to wind another bandage over the first. He finished the wrapping without comment, then slapped an adhesive over the wrist end, then moved away, still without a word. As he walked away, he nodded at Barnette, and then jerked his head toward the door. "Come on, Barnette, I need to kill something." She shook her head and followed him out, her scoped rifle resting at ease, barrel up over her shoulder, the butt resting in the crook of her arm.

Once they left, Casey had her first chance look around the building. The windows were blacked out, with partitions for making cubicles in front of them. Several mattresses were scattered randomly into two corners, and a small fire was burning in the center of the room, with a few mismatched chairs sitting around the pit. After looking around, she then took a moment to examine her arms wrappings, and decided that they were satisfactory. She wanted Eva to return so she could ask about the situation. She fidgeted around, wanting to know, but powerless. After a few minutes that stretched like hours, she sat down, and began cleaning her pistol, which helped calm her. She had just slid the top of the slide back on and slapped the clip back in when Eva came back into the room. In an unusual turn of events, Eva spoke first.

"How you feeling?"

"Shrunk down to size." Casey sighed, holstering the gun. "Think he will actually drum us out?"

"Dunno," Eva responded, slinging her own rifle and holding her hands out to the fire. "Not much he can do about it though, at least until we get back to the city."

"Huh? What do you mean, we're not in the city?" Casey inquired, placing her arm across her chest.

"Nope," she countered offhandedly, "while we were dealing with that tank, the bots launched a full scale counter attack on the center of the city. They have all the sides covered, and we've no way back in." Casey swore, and Eva nodded. "Yep, nothing we can do about it, however. Anyway, get your crippled ass over here and help we fix up some grub for when the rest of the troops get back.' Eva erected a metal strut system over the fire, placed a pot on it, and then filled it with water to boil. Casey pulled out an ace bandaged from her med kit, and strapped her arm to her chest so she wouldn't accidentally use it. She then walked up and waited for Eva to instruct her. As she was given some veggies to chop on a portable table she continued to talk.

"So, what happened to my arm?" She asked as Eva added some things to the pot.

"Ok, well, after you hit the side of that building, the tank bombed the hell out of it with some mortars along its spine. The top floors were turned to dust, and the rest came down on top of you. As far as I know, when Jack pulled you out of the wreckage, two pieces of rebar had gone clean through." The wound had been cleaned and wrapped expertly, but Casey wanted to check it over herself. "After that, we were sent out to do this or that, and Jack and John hauled you out and back here." She continued to stir the pot as Casey mulled this over.

"…So,…what did I do to piss of the C.O.?"

(-)

"So, want to tell me why you ripped Chambers a new chute?" Barnette asked casually as she dug her custom silencer out of a hip pocked, sat on flat vent stack, and began to attach it to the barrel of her rifle. It was, even to her jaded opinion, a truly marvelous device. It was filled with a non-Newtonian liquid, similar to custard. The force of the projectile being fired was absorbed by the fluid, which was packed cushioning three hollow chambers. As the force impacted, the noise and powder was absorbed, changing the fluid into a solid, killing all the sound save the bullets own.

Jack sighed heavily, his back resting on taller stack, not facing her.

"These damned kids, they just never learn." She sighed down her scope, not sure why, before reseating her magazine and setting it aside to fit a Silencer to his.

"Learn what?" He sighed again.

"That they aren't invincible. That they can, and will die, despite how lucky they feel. Plus, when they get themselves killed, _I_ am the one who gets in trouble."

"Oh, and what about you, jumping up there an taking down the giant thing you'd never seen before?" Her voice was flat, her main attention on her task.

"I, by virtue of my lowly status, am entitled to death by monstrous things, as I am not a necessary, nor productive member of operations when we are not ground side."

"True," she said, grunting as she tightened the silencer with a grunt, "but, there is the _slightest_ possibility that_ I_ might miss you, were you to get vaporized. So, you aren't allowed to die until I say so." She shouldered his rifle, relishing the length, and heft of the weapon. Her own felt like a toy by comparison. She worked the bolt, and looked down the scope, which was side mounted, rather than top mounted.

"That is why I can get away with this kind of thing. AS long as you see a use to me, I am golden. Ready yet?"

"Yep." She stood, brushed dirt off of her ass, and handed him his firearm as they both walked to a side, and began looking for patrolling Harvest.

"So, how we doing this, first to five?" Jack asked, looking over his shoulder, unsurprised to see Barnette already eyeing down her scope.

"With all the choice Tango around? Puheh, first to ten. And go Easy on Chambes, too. Personally, I'm surprised she did buy it in the collapse."

"Yeah, ok. I'm kind of surprised myself, on your go."

3 rounds later, Jack lowered his rifle, and looked over at Barnette, leaning back on the retaining wall.

"Hey, 'Nette, you notice anything strange about the Harvest tonight?"

"Tight, controlled sweeps, no retreads, shifting patters, sapping focus." She said, the rifle thumping her shoulder twice as she dropped another pair.

"Yeah, what do you think?"

"Don't know, what do you make of it?"

"It seems like they are being directed by someone, doesn't it?"


End file.
